Training myth: Is jogging the most efficient way to decrease weight?
Regarding decreasing weight, people do exercise and go on a diet simultaneously. We are going to talk about which way is more effective for losing weight.
First, the rule of losing weight is that consuming calories lower than energy expenditure. It is essential to understand basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the minimum calories that support human in generating organs and maintaining physiological functional capacity, breathing, blood circulation, body temperature, etc. Likewise, you still burn BMR calories even though you lie on a couch all day.
There are three parts of burning calories. The first part is basal metabolic rate (BMR). It is around 65%~70% of total daily energy expenditure. Another one is physical activities, such as exercising and walking and equal to 15%~30%. The other is thermic effect of food (TEF), approximately 10%. It is easily found that basal metabolic rate is a predominant factor.
The more muscle we gain, the more calories we burn. Based on former articles, it is pointed out that 1-kilogram of muscles can burn 75~125 calories. In contrast, 1-kilogram of fat can barely burn 4~10 calories instead. Clearly, people who gain amounts of muscle have higher BMR.
As far as efficiently burning fat, resistance training is better than endurance one. Doing resistance training can build more muscle then increase BMR readily. However, resistance training is riskier than endurance one, even weight machine. There are some benefits of endurance training: reducing the risk of injury and increasing abilities to do physical activities. In addition, you are not able to do weight training until you get a membership or buy training tools. That is the reason why most people would rather choose running for losing weight because it is cheaper and safer.