Aerobic exercise - Exercise & Fitness Message Board

ladiehawk00 · 03-28-2004, 02:14 PM

I just read an article and it said that aerobic exercise doesn't really have any effect on losing weight. It basically said, that through its experiments with people, that all you need is a healthy diet and that adding aerobic exercise to it you only lose like 1-3 extra pounds over like a three month period of time. Is that really true? Because it seems like a lot of people start losing a lot of weight when they start running. And why wouldn't aerobic exercise help lose weight.

never2L8 · 03-28-2004, 04:06 PM

Any exercise is very helpful in losing weight, including aerobic, so I would disagree with the article. Maybe the article was expressing a particular opinion and was being selective in its information. Without knowing their test group, study details, time frame and results it is hard to coment.

How much benefit you get from aerobic exercise depends on your lifestyle, diet and activity level before you start the activity. If you are very inactive and 60 lbs overweight before you started eating healthily and walking 30 minutes a day, your weight would come down more than if you simply started eating healthily. If you are only 10 lbs overweight and reasonably active to start with - either in your job or at play - then the benefits from adding aerobic activity would be very minimal.

Please remember that there are cardiovascular benefits from aerobic exercise which have nothing to do with weight loss. Aerobic exercise - like all exercise - helps with blood pressure control, lowering cholesterol, can also be relaxing, assist relieving tension and stress. All of these benefits are attainable without necessarily losing a lot of weight.

Rick7799 · 03-29-2004, 07:56 AM

I don't believe that. You are burning calories when doing aerobic workouts. How can you not lose weight if you never done it before? Of course that is assuming you don't start eating more. Some people may think they can eat that second helping or that candy bar now because they are exercising. If you are overweight and doing nothing now and start aerobic exercise you will lose weight as long as you don't consume more calories. A combination of diet and exercise would be even better.