Chapter 8

Lecture Notes

We know that physical activity is very important for fat loss, and although it doesn't create immediate losses necessarily (very fast quick losses like people often see with medications or a surgery), it is a good predictor-physical activity is a good predictor of maintaining your weight loss. Obviously physical activity burns calories, and we know that even moderate activity (such as walking) burns calories and can add up over the course of a day or a week or a month. And even very small weight losses, such as five to ten percent, can have lots of health benefits, including decreased blood pressure, cholesterol, decreases in your blood sugar levels, increased energy, mobility, self-confidence. So there are a wide range of benefits when people lose even just a small amount of weight—five to ten percent. And these are both physical and psychological.

We also know that physical activity also leads to waist loss, as you can see here on this slide. And that's really what we're talking about here—the loss of visceral fat.

Finally, we know that physical activity maintains your muscle mass, your lean muscle mass, and we know that increases in lean muscle mass is important for improving your metabolic rate and burning more calories, even when you're at rest.

So for all of these reasons, physical activity is a great way to help with fat loss.