The SMARTEST Workout for FAT LOSS (Science Explained)
Summary
TLDRThis video script delves into the complexities of weight loss, emphasizing that while exercise is crucial for health, it's not the primary factor for significant fat loss. The key is a calorie deficit, achievable through diet or increased physical activity. Research suggests that combining diet and exercise yields the best results. The script also explores the types of workouts effective for fat loss, highlighting the importance of sustainability and lifestyle fit. It concludes by advocating for a balance of cardio and strength training for overall health and aesthetic benefits.
Takeaways
- π Weight loss is complex and involves psychology, physiology, and environmental factors, but ultimately hinges on a calorie deficit achieved through reduced energy intake or increased energy expenditure.
- ποΈ Exercise alone is not the primary factor for weight loss; diet plays a significant role, with the saying 'you can't outtrain a bad diet' holding true in many cases.
- π A study by Foster et al. (2012) found that diet modification alone led to substantial weight loss, while combining exercise with diet resulted in the most weight loss, and exercise alone had minimal impact.
- π A systematic review by Swift et al. (2018) indicated that exercise, whether cardio or resistance training, typically resulted in modest weight loss, with more significant weight loss observed with cardio or endurance training.
- πββοΈ High-rep sets in strength training may help with fat loss directionally, but the actual difference in weight loss is likely minimal, making it hard to notice a significant impact.
- π Exercising is beneficial for health, with several meta-analyses showing associations between exercise and improved health outcomes, even at moderate to high intensities.
- πΆββοΈ For effective fat loss, workouts need to be sustainable, fit within lifestyle, and burn a significant amount of calories, making walking or other low-impact activities suitable for consistent energy expenditure.
- ποΈ Walking is an accessible and sociable form of exercise that can be easily incorporated into daily life, offering health benefits and aiding in fat loss when done consistently.
- πͺ Strength training is important even when focusing on fat loss, as it helps retain muscle mass, which is beneficial for aesthetics and overall health.
- π The best workout for fat loss should be enjoyable and sustainable within an individual's lifestyle, whether that involves high-intensity workouts for the busy or more leisurely activities for those with more time.
- π A combination of a higher step count, such as 10,000 steps per day, and strength training can significantly contribute to overall energy expenditure and fat loss over time.
Q & A
What are the two main factors that influence weight loss according to the script?
-The two main factors that influence weight loss are energy intake and energy expenditure. Reducing energy intake means eating a little less, while increasing energy expenditure involves moving more and being more physically active.
What is the primary message about the role of exercise in weight loss presented in the script?
-The script emphasizes that while exercise is important, it is not the main factor in weight loss. The saying 'you can't outtrain a bad diet' is likely true, indicating that diet is more critical than exercise when it comes to creating a calorie deficit.
What was the conclusion of the 2012 study by Foster and colleagues regarding weight loss?
-The study concluded that the group that modified their diet lost a substantial amount of body weight. The group that combined dietary changes with 4 hours of moderate-intensity cardio a week lost the most weight, whereas the group that only exercised didn't lose a significant amount of weight.
What did the systematic review by Swift and colleagues in 2018 find about the impact of exercise on weight loss?
-The review found that just working out, whether it was cardio or resistance training, didn't lead to significant weight loss, usually in the range of 0 to 5% of body weight at most. However, combining exercise with dietary changes resulted in more appreciable weight loss.
What type of training was found to be more effective for weight loss in the literature mentioned in the script?
-Cardio or endurance training was found to be more effective for weight loss compared to resistance or strength training.
What is the importance of sustainability in choosing a workout for fat loss?
-Sustainability is crucial because the chosen workout needs to be something that can be repeated multiple times a week for weeks and months on end to accumulate a meaningful amount of energy expenditure and effectively trigger fat loss.
Why is it recommended to combine weight lifting with cardio for fat loss?
-Combining weight lifting with cardio is recommended because weight lifting helps to preserve muscle mass, which is important for overall health and aesthetics during weight loss.
What are some characteristics of an effective workout for a busy person trying to lose fat, as per the script?
-For a busy person, an effective workout should be intense to burn more calories per minute, sustainable, enjoyable, and should ideally involve minimal eccentric components and impact to be less fatiguing and easier to recover from.
What is the significance of steps in the context of the script for someone who is less busy or new to working out?
-For someone less busy or new to working out, steps are significant as they represent a low-intensity, sociable, and sustainable form of physical activity that can contribute to overall energy expenditure and health benefits.
What is the estimated calorie burn for walking 10,000 steps according to the script?
-The script provides a general estimate that you burn 1 kilocalorie per kilogram of body weight per kilometer walked. For someone weighing 80 kg, walking 10,000 steps (about 8 kilometers) would burn approximately 80 calories.
What is the overarching advice given in the script for incorporating physical activity into one's lifestyle for fat loss?
-The overarching advice is to find a form of physical activity that is enjoyable, sustainable within one's lifestyle, and that allows for consistent engagement to make a meaningful impact on fat loss.
Outlines
πββοΈ The Role of Exercise in Weight Loss
This paragraph discusses the complex factors involved in weight loss, emphasizing that while exercise is important, it is not the primary method for achieving a calorie deficit. The script highlights that diet modification is more effective for weight loss than exercise alone, as supported by research from Foster and colleagues in 2012. It also points out that combining diet and exercise yields the best results. The paragraph mentions that high-rep sets in resistance training may not significantly impact fat loss, suggesting that the type of exercise matters less than the overall calorie deficit achieved.
π΄ββοΈ Sustainability and Lifestyle Fit in Effective Fat Loss Workouts
The second paragraph focuses on the importance of sustainability and lifestyle fit in choosing the right workout for fat loss. It suggests that workouts need to be something one can do regularly over time to be effective. The script advises considering the intensity of the workout to maximize calorie burn and the enjoyment factor to ensure consistency. It also differentiates between two archetypes of individuals looking to lose fat: those with busy lifestyles who need efficient workouts and those who are less busy or new to exercise, for whom walking and gradually increasing activity levels are recommended.
π³ The Benefits of Walking and Incorporating Nature into Fat Loss Routines
The final paragraph of the script extols the virtues of walking as a low-impact, sociable, and sustainable form of exercise that can be easily incorporated into daily life. It touches on the benefits of walking for health, including exposure to sunlight and nature, which are associated with improved well-being. The script also provides a general estimate of calories burned per kilogram of body weight per kilometer walked. It concludes by encouraging viewers to find physical activities they enjoy and can sustain, with a special note on the importance of strength training for maintaining muscle mass during weight loss.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Calorie deficit
π‘Energy expenditure
π‘Physical activity
π‘Cardio
π‘Resistance training
π‘Systematic review
π‘Sustainability
π‘Steps per day
π‘Moderate intensity
π‘Metabolic adaptations
Highlights
Weight loss involves a complex interplay of psychology, physiology, and environmental factors, with energy intake and expenditure as key factors.
Achieving a calorie deficit is fundamental for weight loss, which can be accomplished by reducing energy intake or increasing energy expenditure.
Exercise alone is not the primary method for significant weight loss; diet plays a more crucial role.
A study by Foster et al. (2012) found that diet modification alone led to substantial weight loss, more than just exercise.
Combining diet and exercise resulted in the most weight loss, suggesting a synergistic effect.
High-intensity exercise can burn calories but may not be sustainable for long-term weight loss.
A systematic review by Swift et al. (2018) indicated that exercise alone typically results in minimal weight loss.
Cardiovascular or endurance training may lead to more weight loss compared to resistance or strength training.
The effectiveness of different types of exercise for fat loss is nuanced and depends on individual factors.
Sustainable workouts that can be repeated regularly are more effective for long-term fat loss.
Exercise should fit within an individual's lifestyle to be consistently maintained for fat loss.
Walking is a low-impact, accessible form of exercise that can significantly contribute to overall energy expenditure.
Social aspects of physical activity, such as team sports, can enhance the enjoyment and sustainability of exercise.
Strength training is important for retaining muscle mass during weight loss, which is beneficial for health and aesthetics.
For busy individuals, high-intensity cardio can be an efficient way to burn calories within limited time.
For those with more time or who are new to exercise, incorporating more steps into daily routines can enhance health and aid in weight loss.
The importance of finding enjoyable and sustainable forms of exercise for effective long-term fat loss cannot be overstated.
Transcripts
while the psychology physiology
environmental factors and so forth that
underly weight loss are very complex one
is energy intake and one is energy
expenditure ultimately the goal is to
get into a calorie deficit you can do
that by reducing your energy intake AKA
eating a little bit less or you can do
it by moving more and increasing your
physical activity and that begs the
question what form of physical activity
or whacking out is best for fat loss by
the end of this video you'll know the
answer
welcome back Dr M wolf with you today
PhD in sports science breaking down the
best workouts for fat loss first some
bad news physical activity or exercising
specifically isn't the main thing when
it comes to losing weight and getting
into a calorie deficit the saying you
can't outtrain a bad diet is probably
true when it comes to weight loss
exercise likely isn't that magic bullet
that will all of a sudden make you lose
tons and tons of fat how it can likely
contribute it is very difficult to
create a calorie deficit purely through
exercising usually exercising is
secondary to diet and that's been shown
in tons of research to give you an
example here's a study by Foster schuon
colleagues from 2012 in this study they
compared four groups the first group was
a control group the second group
performed nearly 4 hours a week of
moderate intensity cardio the third
group was simply put on a relatively
aggressive calor deficit achieved
through dietary changes and the fourth
group combined both a dietary changes
with the 4 hours of exercising a week a
few findings emerged first the group
that simply modified their diet lost a
substantial amount of body weight second
the group that lost the most weight was
actually the one combining exercising
with dieting and finally the group just
exercising didn't lose a ton of weight
they lost some weight but not a ton and
that was in the context of doing nearly
4 hours of cardio a week so if all
you're doing is exercising it's going to
be difficult to lose a ton of weight and
that general idea of working out not
being the main thing for weight loss is
corroborated by more data out there for
example a systematic review paper by
Swift and colleagues from 2018 found
that just working out whether that was
cardio or resistance training didn't
lead to tons of weight loss usually in
the range of 0 to 5% of body weight at
the most however when this is combined
with dietary changes is when you can
really start seeing some appreciable
weight loss within literature
importantly though they found more
weight loss with cardio or endurance
training as opposed to resistance or
strength training and so if for example
in the gym you've heard the claim that
doing High rep sets say sets of 20 or
more repetitions is going to really help
you lose fat while that may be true in
terms of directionality I.E it is going
to help the magnitude of that difference
is going to be very very very small in
all likelihood in fact you probably
couldn't even tell the difference if you
went from doing sets of 5 to 10 reps to
only doing sets of 20 or more reps the
difference in weight loss is going to be
minimal if there is one so now to have
set your expectations at the right level
for how much exercising can really
contribute to weight loss let me give
you what I think is the best workout for
fat loss before I do that though let me
tell you why exercising is a good idea
anyways even if it doesn't contribute a
ton to your weight loss for example we
have several metanalyses finding great
associations between how much you
exercise and your health for instance a
couple of metanalyses have found that
doing all the way up to 8 to maybe
15,000 steps improves your health more
and more likewise we have studies on
moderate and vigorous intensity physical
activity which could be stuff like
cardio for example finding that all the
way to about 5 to 10 hours a week you
find improvements in your health so even
though the effect of exercising or
working out on your fat loss is not
going to be huge I'm not going to sit
here or stand here and lie to you for
your health exercising is hugely
important here's what makes a workout
effective for fat loss first it needs to
be sustainable a big reason why walking
out doesn't really do much for your
weight loss in the first place is
because you don't burn that many
calories in the grand scheme of things a
really hard intense cardio session might
have you burn 500 calories to illustrate
that even further think about the
hardest workout you could possibly do
let's say you run a marathon completely
unprepared assuming you weigh around 150
lb that would have you burn around 3,000
calories in one go and that's great
because 3,000 calories is nearly a pound
of fat loss assuming no physiological
weirdness which by the way physiology is
complicated so often times you will
compensate when you exercise leading to
less weight loss than you thought but
assuming none of that happens which it
usually does that would have you lose
nearly a pound of fat assuming a pound
of fat is worth around 3,500 calories
and the marathon is super hard right and
the issue there is that you probably
wouldn't be able to do it more than
about once a month if fat and so you
would lose an additional not even a
pound a month by incorporating this
really intense form of cardio
sustainability is huge because it needs
to be able to be repeated multiple times
a week to add up to a meaningful amount
of energy expenditure to really trigger
fat loss for your body to lose fat you
need to send it the signal that you're
using up energy and that it needs to dry
from somewhere preferably from your fat
stores so if your workout isn't
something you can do sustainably
multiple times a week for weeks and
months on end it's not going to help you
much in your fat loss Journey so think
about that when you think about the
equipment required your motivation to do
different things it needs to be
sustainable next good cordio needs to
fit within your lifestyle if you're busy
for example that is going to have
ramifications for what form of cardio is
better for your fat loss and even if
you're not busy different people have
different starting points if you've just
started working out for the first time
and you're relatively overweight you
might find that walking is a much better
form of activity for weight loss than
something like sprinting or
high-intensity interval training and
finally any good workout for fat loss
needs to burn an appreciable amount of
calories to actually matter for fat loss
you can consume 1,000 calories just like
that in about 3 minutes but burning off
1,000 calories can take you hours and
hours and so we need to make sure that
whatever workout we use does burn an
appreciable amount of of energy to
matter for fat loss now at the risk of
going full Keno on you and making you
take a quiz about your body type I think
most people fall into two kind of
archetypes when it comes to working out
for fat loss so you'll fall into one of
these categories let me break down each
one so you can decide what sort of
working out is going to be best to make
you lose fat and keep it off the first
archetype is a person who's busy but is
still looking to lose fat and makes the
most of their limited time that they
have to work out for you here's what I
recommend I would set a baseline number
of steps of say around 4 to 6,000 per
day whatever you can fit into your
lifestyle and the more the better
however as far as health goes even with
Just 4 to 6,000 steps you'll get many of
the health benefits that you get from
activity so even if you can only hit
this consistently it's still much better
than not doing anything because you're
busy we'll need to make sure that
whatever form of cardio we Implement is
pretty intense so as to burn more
calories per minute spent working out
that means higher intensities of cardio
I would recommend aiming for a certain
number of calories burned every time you
walk out for fat loss while the
calculations used to estimate energy
expenditure or how many calories you
burned during that workout won't be
perfectly accurate it's still a good
reliable metric to aim for any form of
cardio will do provided you do it at a
relatively high intensity but as far as
making it the least fatiguing as you can
here's a couple things to look for first
forms of cardio with a minimal Ecentric
component will be better I'll save you
the science talk about what that means
but essentially things like cycling and
Rowing and incline walking will be a
little bit less fatiguing per C already
burned than things like jogging or
sprinting likewise forms of cardio
without any impact are going to be
slightly easier to recover from as well
and therefore these forms of cardio will
have less of an impact on for example
your strength training within the gym to
preserve muscle and so all us being
equal if you're just looking to burn
calories and get the health benefits I
would prefer forms of cardio like
cycling incline walking and Rowing over
things like running and sprinting
however coming back to the
sustainability Factor it needs to be
something you somewhat enjoy as well so
if you for example find that you really
enjoy team sports or something like that
joining a football or soccer team or a
basketball team and making that a
consistent habit within your life can
really contribute to overall energy
expenditure as well and generally
socializing while being Physically
Active is going to be very beneficial
for your overall health and the final
recommendation if you're busy but still
want to lose fat is to lift weights at
least a couple times a week if you can
do so training each muscle twice a week
say with two full body sessions make
sure that you keep your muscle around
ultimately when you're losing weight for
both the health benefits and for looking
better you'll want to keep your muscle
around keep in mind that one pound of
fat is worth around 3,500 calories so to
make an appreciable dent in your weight
loss you'll want to burn a decent amount
of calories across the week as a
starting point I would recommend four
cardio sessions of 300 calories burned
each time that adds up to a weekly
energy expenditure of 1,200 calories
through cordio which if you keep it up
could result in an additional third of a
pound of fat loss each week if you add
in the number of steps you're doing that
could be even more keep that up for 6
months and all else being equal that
could be an additional 8 to 9 lbs of fat
lost the second archetype people fall
into are people who are less busy and or
who are not hugely into working out or
exercising this also applies to people
who are just new to working out in
general and who may not be as fit or
comfortable going into really intense
cardio the main thing for you is going
to be getting more steps in for instance
setting a baseline Target of 10,000
steps per day is phenomenal for your
health and for overall energy
expenditure now you might be asking how
many calories does 10,000 steps burn how
do I estimate how how many calories I'm
burning when I'm doing steps a good
generalistic is that you're burning 1
kilo calorie per kilogram of body weight
per kilometer walked now I'm sorry if
you don't live in the metric world but
you'll have to use this anyways for
instance for someone weighing 80 kg and
being of a roughly average height here's
what that would look like now just
walking leisurely is going to have a
lower energy expenditure per minute
spent walking than more intense forms of
cardio but it's also going to be a bit
less fatiguing than more intense cardio
and importantly going for walks is a
great way to achieve several things at
the same time first it's more sociable
than most formal forms of cardio if
you're in the gym and just doing intense
cardio it's hard to socialize at the
same time when you're walking you can
easily bring along a friend or place a
phone call to a family member and all of
a sudden you're also making it
productive and enjoyable it's low
intensity and it's not very fatiguing on
account of a low Ecentric and impact
component most people can walk so
walking is a pretty low Bearer to entry
for a physical activity it can also
allow you to get some exposure to
sunlight which helps with your circadian
rhythm it's also associated with better
health benefit benefits on account of
being around nature indeed there
something called nature therapy and the
research that is generally deemed to be
positive for health and getting more
steps in is associated with Better
Health all the way to 8 to maybe even
15,000 steps per day ideally alongside
this step count Target if you have the
time to do it lift weights twice a week
two full body sessions or even more than
that ultimately while I gave you these
two broad archetypes realize that
physical activity and working up for fat
loss needs to be sustainable within your
lifestyle to really make an impact find
something that you enjoy that you can
fit within your lifestyle consistently
and that allows you to reach your goals
there's a spectrum from more busy and
more intense forms of cardio to less
busy and less intense but the main thing
is just going to be to be more
physically active to boost fat loss get
some cardio in or do more steps and to
retain your muscle mass which is good
for both Aesthetics and overall health
get a couple of sessions of strength
training in per week that is the video
broke down how important walking out for
fat loss really is what the best forms
of working out for fat loss are and why
you should still be strength training
even when you're working out for weight
loss or fat L if you enjoyed this video
please comment like subscribe hopefully
this is helping you get lean for summer
or just make a positive overall
lifestyle change for your weight and
health if you'd like me to coach you
consider checking out the link above and
I can become your coach if you're new to
working out I have good news for you for
years now some sports scientists
colleagues and myself have been working
on a training app that essentially takes
what a good coach would do and puts it
all into an app it's filled with the
most Cutting Edge science on how to gain
muscle and they will create a program
individualized to you helping you gain
muscle even if you only have an hour to
train a week or a couple of hours the
app will take all of that into
consideration and create a program that
fits you this app is coming out in the
next couple of months if you'd like to
be notified when it does come out check
out myo app.com and sign up to the email
newsletter if you sign up for it when it
launches you'll be able to lock in at a
lower price than any other time thank
you for watching have a phenomenal day
and I'll see you guys my subscribers in
that next one peace
Browse More Related Video
Exercise vs Diet
Why Cardio Is Overrated For Fat Loss (Focus on THIS Instead)
The SMARTEST Way to Finally LOSE FAT in 2024 (Science Explained)
What Factors are Most Important for Fat Loss?
The Literal Most Powerful Exercise for Shrinking Visceral Belly Fat (legit evidence)
The #1 Exercise To Lose Belly Fat (FOR GOOD!)
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)