Fitness is more important than weight loss for optimal health. While weight and fitness losses often move in unison, it is possible to be fit and classified as overweight. A study using body mass index (BMI) found that if your BMI is 25 to 29, you are considered to be overweight, and if your BMI is 30 or more, you are considered obese. It is possible to lose weight without seeing a change in your weight.
This happens when you lose body fat while gaining muscle. Knowing the difference between losing weight and losing body fat can change the way you see yourself and your progress. Adding cardio to your lifestyle will likely help you control your weight and improve your metabolic health, if you maintain the same caloric intake. Exercise is just one component of functional fitness; diet and sleep are just as important.
You need the right nutrition (good quality proteins, healthy fats and fresh vegetables) to help your body work efficiently. That means that as long as you do the right calculations, you will lose weight. A focus purely on weight ignores the many benefits of fitness. Lean muscle requires more energy to maintain itself, and therefore, even when inactive, having more lean muscle compared to fat will create a higher base metabolism, making it easier to lose fat and increase overall fitness.
If you follow an extremely strict calorie reduction plan, you may not lose a lot of weight for days, or even a week or two. Three 10-minute walks a day take you out of the low-fit category and provide you with significant health benefits. Improving your fitness is much more important than simply losing weight, if you want to improve your health. Risk reductions involved in getting fit, rather than simply losing weight, were significantly greater according to researchers.
Lifting weights helps maintain and develop muscles, and helps prevent metabolism from slowing down when you lose fat. By increasing your activity levels and starting a fitness routine, you will increase the amount of calories burned. The study published by researchers at the University of Virginia found that when it came to improving health and reducing risks of premature death whenever possible, increasing physical activity and improving fitness seemed to be superior to simply losing weight.
