Can You Lose Weight Without Exercise?

Wouldn't it be great if all you needed to do to lose weight was watch what you eat. No gyms, no perspiration or hard work... If you've heard people claim to have lost weight without exercise, you may be wondering if it's possible.

You Can't Maintain Weight Loss Without Exercise

Sure, you can shed kilos through calorie restriction alone, but the truth is that you can't maintain weight loss without exercise. Without exercise you will lose more water and muscle tissue than body fat. Losing muscle and water may look great on the scales, but it slows your metabolism and makes it easier for you to regain weight.

Exercise improves your body composition, meaning that you will have a larger proportion of metabolically active muscle tissue. And when your metabolic rate increases it's easier for you to lose weight and maintain your weight loss.

Additional Benefits of Exercise

Exercise is not just about weight loss. The health benefits of exercise include:

• Reduced levels of body fat, especially abdominal fat
• Increased metabolic rate
• Lower blood pressure
• Higher levels of HDL (good) cholesterol which protects your arteries
• Lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol which clogs your arteries
• Lower risk of developing diabetes
• Improved muscle strength
• Improved bone density, reducing the risk of osteoporosis
• Increased energy levels and improved fitness
• Sleep regulation
• Improved mood and fewer symptoms of depression.

How to Start an Exercise Program

Don't feel overwhelmed by the prospect of starting an exercise program: something is better than nothing. You don't need to start running marathons to lose weight: in fact a more moderate, comfortable exercise regime will be more manageable in the long term. Daily walking is a great habit, particularly with a friend to share the time. To burn fat, aim for a pace where you breathing rate is elevated but you can still talk.

For more tips on how to exercise for weight loss, see our articles on Exercise for Weight Loss and Maintenance and Finding Your Motivation to Exercise.

Outsmarting a Weight Plateau

You've been checking the scales each week and progress is steady, you'll achieve your weight loss goals in no time! But suddenly the scales refuse to budge... It doesn't make sense! You haven't changed your diet and you haven't skipped an exercise session...

It's disappointing, it's frustrating and it's called a weight plateau. But the good news is that you aren't the first to experience it, and that you can take steps to outsmart it:

Maintain your Metabolism

When you restrict your calorie intake it's almost inevitable that your metabolism will slow. Try incorporating more resistance training into your exercise program to maintain your metabolically active muscle tissue and eat small but regular meals.

Adjust Your Exercise Routine

As you become fitter your body becomes more efficient at performing a given exercise, i.e. you burn less energy. To burn more energy, try changing the type of activity that you do to challenge different (and less efficient) muscle groups. Try cycling, swimming, rowing, using a cross trainer or learning to use different equipment at the gym.

If you don't want to change your activity type, you will need to exercise at a slightly higher intensity. You can increase the speed or incline of your walks, the resistance on your exercise bike or your swimming speed in the pool. At this stage you may wish to consider purchasing a heart rate monitor to make sure that you are still exercising in your fat burning zone.

Reduce Your Stress and Anxiety Levels

Chronic stress means chronically elevated levels of a hormone called Cortisol in your body, which may predispose you to storing fat (1). If you are feeling stressed or anxious, investigate some stress management techniques.

Be Honest with Yourself

How long has it been since you weighed your meat portions or measured your cereal serves? Should you be counting that thick slice of raisin toast as one serve or two? These little things might not seem like much, but added together they determine if you gain weight or lose it.

Start weighing your food portions and recording your intake of food, including calories. Recording can be cumbersome, but it might just be enough to help you identify where the problem lies.

Are You Really at a Plateau?

Are your clothes feeling looser but the scales aren't moving (or even moving in the wrong direction)? It might be the case that your body composition is changing, i.e. you are gaining muscle tissue (which is heavier than fat). This is possible if you have changed your exercise regime to include more resistance training, or you have changed the type of exercise that you are doing. To find out if you have gained muscle, measure your waist and hip circumference instead of stepping onto your scales.

The benefits of exercise, stress reduction and healthy eating extend beyond losing weight - they bring out the best in your body. So focus on enjoying how you feel rather than focusing on the number on your scales. If you have lost weight you are probably feeling more healthy and energetic, and that's something to celebrate.

10 Tips for Weight Maintenance

If you've worked hard to achieve your weight loss goal, you'll want to enjoy your healthy weight for life. Here are our top ten tips for weight maintenance:

1. Monitor Your Weight

Check your weight each week (don't weigh yourself too often it's natural for your weight to fluctuate daily). Use your bathroom scales, or find a pair of pants that are comfortable at your goal weight and identify if they get significantly tighter or looser.

It's normal for your weight to fluctuate by 1-2 kilograms, but if you notice your weight increasing on two or more consecutive weeks try one (or a combination) of the following three actions:

1. Decrease your calorie intake
2. Increase the duration and / or frequency of your exercise sessions
3. Be honest with yourself: are there any areas of your lifestyle, behaviour or environment that have changed?

You should set an upper and a lower limit on your weight (a Dietitian can help you set appropriate limits). If you hit your upper or lower limit, seek professional help from a Dietitian or Doctor as soon as possible. And don't procrastinate for too long - it's much easier to reverse a 1-2kg weight gain than it is to reverse a 5-7kg weight gain!

2. Monitor Your Eating Patterns

Keep a food diary to ensure that you are eating the right amounts of food from each of the five food groups. It may sound tedious, but a food diary helps you to check that you are eating regularly. Try to maintain a consistent eating pattern, including weekends and holidays.

3. Exercise

To maintain your weight you need to exercise at a moderate intensity (a rate at which your heart rate is elevated but you can still carry out a conversation) for at least 250 minutes per week. Try walking for 30 minutes on five days of every week. For the fitter members of the audience, you can try vigorous cardiovascular exercise such as jogging for 20 minutes a day on three days of the week.

If you want to change the shape of your body or strengthen your muscles, try resistance training, or performing exercise against an opposing force such as water, free weights, weight machines, a theraband, a fit ball or even your own body weight. Resistance training increases the proportion of lean body tissue (muscle) in your body contributing to a higher metabolic rate, as well as improving your posture, flexibility and strength. If you are interested in starting a resistance training program, it's best to have a program designed by an Exercise Physiologist or a personal trainer.

4. Continue to Set Goals

The goal of weight loss is change, whereas the goal of weight maintenance is no change. It can be hard to maintain your resolve when you don't see results for the effort you are putting in. To account for this, try setting other life goals that are better enjoyed at a lower weight (e.g. joining a community walking group or travelling).

5. Reward Yourself

When you were losing weight you were probably enjoying the associated rewards: complements from friends, the excitement of fitting into smaller clothes and a dropping body weight. You'll have to devise a new set of rewards to keep you motivated during weight maintenance: treat yourself to a massage, buy a book or have a manicure of pedicure at the end of every month. You'll need to reward yourself for at least the first few years after weight loss.

6. Enlist Support

While you were losing weight it's likely that you received encouragement from family, friends and health professionals. Weight maintenance can be just as difficult as weight loss at times - and it can be a more isolated process. But it doesn't have to be that way. Tell the important people in your life that maintaining your healthy weight is important to you, and that you'd like their support and encouragement for the long term.

7. Stay Vigilant

It's easy to become complacent when you achieve your weight loss goal. People sometimes fall into the trap of thinking, "I can have an extra scoop of chocolate ice cream - I've lost a lot of weight and I'm feeling really good". Just because you've lost weight it doesn't mean that extra calories don't add up anymore!

It's important to treat yourself from time to time, but it's also important to recognise when extra treats are creeping into your diet too often. By keeping a food diary (or just listing your treats on a notepad) you can identify how frequently you are indulging. You should consume no more than 2-3 treats per week, and try to limit your treats to a 200 Calorie portion.

8. Be Organised

It's hard to manage your weight when the rest of your life is in chaos. Leave plenty of time to relax, sleep, shop for healthy foods, prepare healthy meals and exercise.

9. Maintain a Healthy Level of Self Esteem

Don't link how you feel about yourself to your weight. Be happy with you weight and proud of the weight loss that you have achieved.

10. Don't Use Food to Stabilise Your Moods

If you are feeling stressed or upset, find a non-food related way of calming yourself - go for a walk or call a friend.

Lastly, don't forget that weight maintenance can be just as challenging as weight loss (if not more so in the first two years). But it gets easier with time, and by following our advice you will be well on your way to success.

Menopause and Weight Loss

Many women associate menopause or the use of hormone replacement therapy with weight gain. But what are the facts? And what can you do about it?

In both women and men, there is an increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) with age, with the peak BMI occurring between 50 and 59 years of age (1). Many women claim that this weight gain is caused by menopause, however research doesn't support these claims. Women gain total body weight at a linear rate from age 35 - 65, a trend that is not related to loss of ovarian hormones or their subsequent replacement (2).

Menopause results in body composition changes that could indirectly lead to weight gain. During the menopausal years there is a shift in the distribution of fat from the traditional hourglass figure of the younger woman to a more central deposition in the abdomen.

These changes in fat distribution are independently associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension, abnormal lipid profiles, Type II Diabetes and cardiovascular disease (3). In addition to the change in the distribution of body fat, there is more body fat and less muscle mass. This may decrease resting metabolic rate, which in turn results in weight gain (4).

What's the best advice for women dealing with weight gain in their menopausal years?

Exercise. Try walking at a moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes a day (in 10 - 30 minute bouts) and partake in bi-weekly resistance training sessions. This prescription is supported by a study that demonstrated numerous health benefits for exercise in menopausal women, including loss of abdominal fat and overall body fat (5).

References:
1. Kuczmarski RJ, Flegal KM, Campbell SM, Johnson CL. 1994, 'Increasing prevalence of overweight among US adults, A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1960-1991' Journal of the Americal Medical Association, 272:205-11
2. Davies KM, Heaney RP, Recker RR, Barger-Lux MJ and Lappe JM. 2001, 'Hormones, Weight Change and Menopause' International Journal of Obesity, 25:874-879
3. Sturdee D, MacLennan A. 2007, 'The weight problem', Climacteric, 10:2
4. Smith K. 2005, 'Exercise Can Help Control Body Changes During Menopause', Healthcare, Food and Nutrition, 22(10)10-11
5. Asikainen T, Kukkonen-Harjula K, Miilunpalo S. 2004, 'Exercise for Health for Early Postmenopausal Women', Sports Medicine, 34:753-778

Find Your Motivation to Exercise: 10 Tips

Struggling to get out the door for your afternoon walk? Or finding that extra hour of sleep more appealing than hitting the pavement for your morning stroll?

Despite being well aware of the benefits of exercise - and knowing how great you will feel after exercising - you may find yourself struggling with motivation. Read on for some tips:

1. Adopt an Exercise Buddy

Exercise buddies keep you accountable - there's nothing like the commitment of knowing that someone is waiting for you. Walking groups or cycling bunch rides are a great way to meet people, and as your fitness improves, other people who have greater fitness will spur you on!

2. Walk to a Beat

Listening to music can motivate you during exercise, resulting in longer, more enjoyable sessions. If music isn't your thing, try listening to books on CD or podcasts.

3. Try Something New

Try cycling, aqua aerobics, water running, walking, swimming or even dancing. There is a form of exercise that you will love out there - you just may not have found it yet!

4. Just Do It

Sometimes overanalysing can be detrimental - you just need to get out there and exercise!

5. Enter Fun Runs and Walks

You don't have to be a serious runner or athlete to enter races, most have 'walker' divisions. Aim to do a fun run or walk to sustain interest and give yourself a goal to work towards.

6. Schedule It

Book an appointment with yourself and prioritise exercise just like you would any other appointment.

7. Exercise Early

If you want to get something done, do it before other tasks and responsibilities accumulate. If you exercise early you will benefit from an elevated metabolic rate for the remainder of the day, which means you are likely to burn more calories. If you can't fit exercise in early, try to do it before you get home. Once you get home, it can be difficult to go back outside!

8. Be Prepared

Keep a bag of exercise clothes at your work or in your car - you never know when you may be able to fit in an exercise session. If you are going to exercise in the morning, organise the gear you need the night before.

9. Keep Track

Keep an exercise diary, or use a heart rate monitor to measure your exercise intensity, duration and calories burned. When you meet your exercise goals, treat yourself to a non food-related reward. When you are pressed for time, a pedometer is a great way of measuring your incidental exercise.

10. Be Flexible

Don't worry too much about missed exercise days, but try to identify the barriers that prevent you from exercising and address them.

How to Increase Your Metabolic Rate

To increase your metabolic rate, or the rate at which your body burns energy, you need to exercise at a moderate intensity (a level where your breathing rate is elevated, but you can still carry out a conversation) for at least 250 minutes a week. You also need to eat small meals every three hours.

Metabolism Explained

Your metabolism is important in determining how much body fat you burn. Every person's metabolic rate is different, but in theory, raising your metabolic rate by 10% can decrease your body weight by up to 7.5 kilograms! Your metabolic rate comprises of three factors, two of which you have the power to change:

1. Resting metabolic rate the amount of energy expended when you are sleeping or sedentary (60 - 70% of the average person's daily energy use)
2. Physical activity (20 - 25% of the average person's daily energy use)
3. Thermogenesis an increase in your resting metabolic rate in response to stimuli such as food digestion (10% of the average person's daily energy use)

The two factors that you have the power to change are the physical activity (engage in regular exercise) and thermogenesis (eat every 2-3 hours).

Don't Slow Your Metabolism

One of the fastest ways to slow your metabolsim is to 'crash diet', or try fast diets and fasting. When you lose weight quickly, your body responds to perceived starvation by slowing your metabolic rate to conserve energy. Hence when you start eating normally again, your body stores fat because its metabolism has slowed!

Yo-yo dieting has a similar effect. The more weight you lose, regain and lose again; the more muscle tissue you will shed. Unlike fat, muscle tissue is metabolically active.

So by maintaining a healthy metabolism with exercise and regular eating, you'll enjoy a healthy metabolism - and a healthy weight.

Fast Weight Loss: Why it Doesn't Work

Fasting diets generate fast but false results. Here's why:

You lose fluid, not fat And any fluid lost will return as soon as the fast is completed, in other words you'll re-gain any weight that you lost.

Lowered metabolism During fasting your metabolism slows by up to 40% to prepare for starvation, so when you eat normally again your body burns fewer calories and you gain weight.

Hunger and lethargy Fasting leads to hunger and cravings - not what you need when you are trying to lose weight! And when you drastically cut your calorie intake you will feel weak, making it even more difficult to maintain your resolve to lose weight.

Yo yo dieting Fasting often leads to cycles of weight loss and weight gain called 'yo yo' dieting. 95% of people who go on fast weight loss diets regain any weight lost - plus more - within two years (1).

Abstinence leads to binging When your food intake is restricted you experience physical and emotional deprivation. This compels you to eat, which commonly leads to overeating or binging. As a result, you are likely to feel sensations of guilt and failure. This often becomes a cycle which is difficult to break and has devastating effects on your self esteem (1).

Nutritional deficiencies Prolonged fasting may lead to nutritional deficiencies. For example, if you don't consume enough calcium you may be at risk of osteoporosis, or if you don't consume enough fibre you may experience constipation.

Poor Health Fast weight loss is bad for your health because it:
- Increases your risk of medical complications such as gallstones, gout and constipation (2)
- Lowers your immunity
- Leaves you deficient in important vitamins and minerals.

Impracticalities Fast weight loss involves restricting food intake to the point where you are constantly hungry and lack the nutrients you need to maintain physical health and energy levels. This situation can't be sustained in the long term. Plus fasting makes it difficult to carry out normal social interactions - people who are dieting often avoid social situations and family mealtimes, leading to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Some people claim that fasting can help rid your body of 'toxins' (i.e. the food you eat). 'Toxins' occur naturally in your body, and your body has fantastic systems to cleanse itself (your kidneys and liver).

Healthy Weight Loss

A sensible weight loss goal is 0.5 - 1kg per week, and the best way to achieve this is to make healthy changes to your eating and exercise habits. These changes should always be sustainable - that way you will lose weight and keep it off.

References:
1. Why Diets Don't Work, Eating Disorders Foundation of Victoria
2. Rapid Weight Loss Linked to Gallstones, Flinders Medical Centre