Is it true that … you need to work out if you want to lose weight? | Life and style
IIn order to lose weight, most people need to maintain a calorie deficit over a prolonged period, says Bethan Crouse, a performance nutritionist at Loughborough University. “This can be done by increasing exercise to increase your calorie expenditure and thus create a deficit,” she says. “In this case, exercise might be the key to losing weight. But you can approach it another way: By choosing lower-calorie foods and reducing your energy intake, you can create a deficit without changing your amount of exercise.”
Relying solely on workouts to lose weight can be a challenge. “If you want to burn an extra 300 to 500 calories a day, that’s an awful lot of exercise. You’ll probably also need some sort of nutritional intervention to create that gap between energy intake and production.”
She recommends focusing on diet, making sure meals are built around a good source of protein, plenty of vegetables and fruit, healthy fats and whole-grain carbs – but don’t make carbs the majority of the meal. When it comes to movement, Crouse suggests thinking about overall daily activity rather than formal workouts. Sedentary office workers, for example, might use their lunch break to get some fresh air and a walk, while social plans might shift towards more active options – swapping the cinema for table tennis or the pub for a walk in the park.
Crouse is keen to emphasize the benefits of exercise, beyond weight loss. She encourages people to stick to the NHS guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) per week, plus strength training for two days.
“It has benefits for mental health, improves cardiovascular fitness, supports bone health and strength, and becomes especially important as you age for things like fall prevention,” she says.
