As we know exercise has so many health benefits and these include reducing the risk of heart disease, helping your body manage blood sugar and insulin levels, improve your sleep and your mood along with strengthening your bones and muscles.
Bearing in mind that all of these benefits are not weight loss related, I wanted to share why linking exercise to weight loss alone isn’t always the best way to achieve long term weight loss. What I have found from my own approach to exercise and working with clients too, is that the most successful weight loss journeys often come from people who don’t link exercising to weight loss on its own. Those who find an exercise they enjoy (which is the most important thing to stay consistently active!) find weight loss and improving body shape as more of a by-product to being active.
The risk of always linking weight loss to exercise too, is wanting to stop exercising when you reach your weight loss goal. A good thing to remember here is that if you have only being exercising to lose weight, stopping once you have reached your goal will more than likely mean that the weight will gradually creep on again. You’ll also be missing out on all the wonderful health benefits that I mentioned earlier.
So the key take home here is to really try and look for an exercise that you enjoy. If the gym (or maybe at home workouts at the moment!) isn’t for you then that’s fine, why not try going for a brisk 15minute walk whilst listening to your favourite music or podcast, giving Yoga a try or even having a good dance around your kitchen whilst the dinner is cooking. Anything at all that can get your body moving and that you know you can do on a regular basis without it feeling like a real chore or something you dread doing!
To your health and wellness,
Áine x
