Can you lose weight just by doing aerobic exercise? The truth is coming

Of course you can lose weight by doing only aerobic exercise, but the subsequent difficulty of maintaining this "thinness" and whether your body shape looks good or not really depends on the situation.

When I first started losing weight two years ago, I heard people say that aerobic exercise will make you lose weight quickly, so I ran 5 kilometers around the neighborhood every night, and deliberately avoided milk tea hot pot when eating. In the first two months, I really lost 14 pounds. People around me said that my face looked smaller. At that time, I also boasted to my friends that strength training was an IQ tax, and aerobic exercise was the fastest way to lose weight.

As a result, Gao Gao hit a plateau within two months. My weight didn't move at all for three consecutive weeks. I gritted my teeth and increased my running mileage to 7 kilometers. My knees couldn't bear it anymore. I went to the hospital to see a doctor who told me that I ran too much and didn't build muscles. The stability of my knee joints was poor, and he asked me to stop running first to recuperate. During that time, I didn’t dare to eat more, but my weight still increased by 3 pounds. Later, after asking friends who had been doing fitness for several years, I found out that almost 30% of the weight loss due to aerobic exercise is muscle. Without muscle, the basal metabolic rate decreases. This is the amount of calories you consume when you lie down and do nothing for a day. Originally, you can burn 1,500 calories a day, but after losing muscle, you may only burn 1,300. If you continue to eat as before, the calorie gap will not fall off the scale, and you will rebound after eating a little more.

Someone will definitely refute this. My best friend does Pamela aerobics every day, and she has lost 20 pounds in half a year and has not regained it? This is indeed true. She is young, just 22 years old, and her basal metabolism is already high. She still likes to stand and catch fish at work, and she also likes to go out with friends on weekends. The little muscle she lost has little impact on her, and she always changes her tricks in aerobics. She does aerobics today, plays badminton the next day, and goes hiking the day after tomorrow. The body does not adapt to the consumption pattern so quickly, so it can naturally maintain a calorie deficit, so it is natural for her to lose weight.

To put it bluntly, it's like driving a long distance. Relying only on aerobic energy means you only dare to step on the accelerator. You are unwilling to maintain the car and upgrade the engine. You speed up quickly at the beginning, but after running for a long time, the engine wears out (loses muscle), and the fuel consumption becomes higher and higher. Either you have to step on the accelerator harder (increase aerobic capacity), or you have to refuel less (eat less), otherwise the speed will definitely not increase. If you just want to lose a few pounds in the short term to cope with important occasions, and then you can maintain your exercise and eating habits, and accept that your body will be a little loose after losing weight, then only doing aerobics is enough. ； If you want to look good in tight clothes after losing weight, and your body will be tight when pinched, and you won’t have to go hungry every day and it will not be easy to rebound, then you will definitely save a lot of worry by doing some strength training 2-3 times a week.