LINK EXERCISE TO WEIGHT LOSS
For starters, remember that weight loss and getting slimmer are not the same. In fact, you can tone your muscles and improve your figure without losing weight. Aerobic activities like running, cycling and swimming use a lot of energy and burn fats. At the same time, exercise makes you gain muscle, which is heavier than fat!
In any event, you can lose weight while gaining muscle because the more muscle mass you have, the higher your basal metabolic rate will be and the more energy and calories you will burn. Basically, more muscles help you burn more calories!
In terms of energy, one hour of running, cycling or swimming burns 400 to 600 calories, but one kilogramme of body fat corresponds to 8000 calories! Since you burn about 65 calories when walking a mile, you would have to walk 4.6 kilometres per day for an entire month to lose one kilogram… Along the same lines, if you run at a speed of 8 km/hr, you burn about 80 calories per kilometre, so you would have to keep up this pace for 12.5 hours to lose one kilogramme! The long and the short of this is that you need to exercise regularly to lose weight.
If you haven't done any physical activity in a long time, gradually ease back into exercising. Slowly increase the length and intensity of your workouts without hurting yourself. Try to exercise at your endurance pace, which should be about 60 to 75% of your maximum heart rate. If you are significantly overweight, avoid types of exercise where you have to carry your own weight, and instead choose cycling, swimming or rowing.