Exercise boosts metabolism and burns fat. It also lowers insulin and increases catecholamines… and it’s the best way to increase blood flow to adipose tissue and to transport fatty acids out of fat cells.
Exercise helps to burn fat because it requires you to move your muscles. Moving your muscles causes physiological changes that are necessary to maintain and build new muscle mass. Every pound of muscle in your body needs somewhere between 50-100 calories to maintain that muscle mass. And when you consider that fat is burned almost exclusively in your muscle, you can begin to see just how crucial it is to not only maintain the muscle you have, but to build new muscle as well. Simply put, the more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn. Conversely, losing muscle (by lack of exercise) reduces your body's ability to burn fat.
In addition to all the calorie and fat-burning effects, exercise also has the remarkable ability to stimulate fat tissue by increasing blood flow to your fat cells. This makes for easier fat mobilizatio which is especially important to the stubborn fat areas like the hips, thighs, belly and buttocks, where insufficient blood flow is believed to be the cause of “stubborn body fat.” That being said, understand that every time you exercise, you get a ton of fat-burning benefits. But also remember that physical fitness LOVES consistency. Being consistent with your workouts means serious results.
Exercise has a wide range of benefits besides fat burning and better fat mobilization. Exercise also regulates appetite, improves sleep patterns, elevates mood, and increases energy levels and promotes a general feeling of well being. Exercise has also been shown to add years to your life, help you fend off many diseases and keep your body in far better health than those who do not exercise.
A recent study revealed that people on low-carb diets who do not exercise still burn more fat that thoseon low-fat diets who do exercise. And while you will burn more fat on this diet than anything you've ever tried before, we can still take those results and nearly double them with a good exercise program.
