Exercise vs. Physical Activity for Fat Loss:

Do you need to "exercise" to lose fat or do you just need plenty of "physical activity"? I'd like to continue our conversation from yesterday...... the one about the Amish and their very low rate of obesity.

I get a lot of questions about walking for fat loss, and do you burn more calories walking or bike riding. Bottom line, at the speed that I see many people walking or riding their bike, it doesn't really make a difference.

This afternoon it was about 60 degrees and sunny, so I took a walk down by the Mississippi River, on the Iowa side this time. There were a few other walkers and a couple bike riders. If you are out strolling along at a pretty casual pace, you won't burn that many calories.

This is the same for joggers and cyclists. A fast pace is required to burn the most calories. If you are just starting to exercise for the first time in a long time, you might see some weight loss by doing anything. After a while, your body will adapt to this and you will have to change the stimulus.

This would include exercising for more time, more often, and a faster pace. You can lose weight by walking only, but it will probably take a while and you will have to be fairly strict with your diet.

The logical thing would be to add in some resistance training to increase your lean muscle tissue, thus increasing your metabolism. If you don't want to spend any more time than necessary, strength training is more efficient, especially when combined with walking.

If you can't or won't exercise intensely, you need to be like the Amish, get more physical activity all throughout the day, so at the end of the day you burned many calories, as opposed to an intense exercise session, where you burned many calories at once (keeping your metabolism elevated for several hours).

After all, the Amish don't go to healthclubs to exercise, do they? Of course, they don't really need to!

Resistance training to reverse the aging process.