For weight loss, you need to move more and eat fewer calories than you expend. The more time you spend exercising, the more cardio you do, and the more vigorous the cardio, the better. Recommendations from the major bodies suggest at least 60 to 90 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity cardio activity on most days of the week to lose weight, prevent weight gain, or keep lost weight off.
True, there are caveats, including:
The same recipe may not apply to everyone.
You can shorten the time needed if you make your workout a little harder.
Weight can be lost faster but quick loss, or shedding pounds by dieting alone is not the healthiest path, and definitely not the road to permanent weight reduction.
You can improve your body composition—or shift the ratio of body fat to lean body mass—by lifting weights and building more muscle. But research has shown that weight lifting alone is unlikely to lead to weight loss.
An hour or more of exercise might be too much for an unfit person or someone with injuries. You might need to start with a few minutes of movement a day and work up from there.
Martica Heaner, Ph.D., M.A., M.Ed., is a Manhattan-based exercise physiologist and nutritionist, and an award-winning fitness instructor and health writer. She has a Ph.D. in behavioral nutrition and physical activity from Columbia University, and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. She has written hundreds of articles for publications such as Self , Health , Prevention , The New York Times and others. Martica is the author of eight books, including her latest, Cross-Training for Dummies.
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