Is Exercise Efficiency Hindering Your Weight Loss Goals?

In order to lose weight, it is necessary to create a calorie deficit. Typically, a daily deficit of 500 calories is enough to promote weight loss. A pound of body fat contains 3,500 calories, so as long as you’ve stuck to your daily 500 calorie deficit then you should lose 1 pound per week. 

However, this is not always the case for the majority of us. Although the numbers are accurate they do not factor in the variables of life. There are many variables that can affect how you lose weight. In this blog we’ll look at how exercise efficiency can affect your weight loss. 

Creating a deficit

We have two ways to create a calorie deficit, eating less or exercising more. Ideally you do a little of both. This sounds pretty straight forward, and it is on paper, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, it does not always work as it should. 

In order to create a calorie deficit through exercise you have to do some form of activity that amounts to a total net loss of calories at the end of the day. Let’s assume you are eating 3,000 calories daily and choose to use fast walking as your form of exercise.

You start off by walking 1-2 miles each day eventually working up to 2-3 miles daily at a pretty quick moving pace. After 2 months you notice some weight loss and are feeling good. You decide to keep up this new lifestyle and maintain your 2-3 mile daily walk.

By the third or fourth month you notice that your weight loss has slowed down and by 6 months you’ve completely stalled and are no longer losing weight, what gives? You’ve been consistent with your daily walking and having changed your eating habits so you still should be creating a calorie deficit.

Although this is true, unfortunately, this is where those variables come in. Your weight and exercise efficiency have major roles in the calories burned during a given activity.

When you first started walking you weighed more which produced a higher calorie usage then your current lighter weight. As you lose weight it takes less and less calories to move the body and that  2-3 mile walk is no longer producing the same calorie deficits. 

Prior to starting walking daily, you haven’t really done much dedicated exercise outside of daily activities. When you first started walking and completed your first mile it probably felt exhausting and was all you could do.

As you continued to walk, your body got stronger, and your endurance increased. This allowed you to walk 2 miles and then 3 miles comfortably. By 3 months, 3 miles felt less difficult then the first few 1 mile walks when you first started. 

You have become more efficient at your given activity through adapting to your exercise. This allowed you to walk further with more ease but unfortunately, it has also decreased the number of calories your body needs to use to support the activity. 

How to Maintain a deficit

Now that you know your body requires less calories to perform a given exercise due to weight loss and increased exercise efficiency, how do you continue creating a deficit and losing weight?

You can either increase your current weight or increase exercise difficulty to overcome your current efficiency. Luckily, there are several ways to accomplish this and still fit into your schedule.

First off, increasing your weight does not mean gaining back your weight. You can add external weight to equal your starting weight by putting some heavy objects into a backpack or fanny pack. Small bags filled with sand are the easiest way to do this and still be comfortable on your back.

To increase exercise difficulty you have several options. You can choose just one or use multiple methods based on your daily schedule.

If your short on time:

• Increase your overall pace

• Choose a route with more hills

• Add short bursts of walking as fast as possible followed by walking your normal pace

• Add some bodyweight exercises to your walk - exercise walking paths are a great option

If you have more time:

• Increase the overall distance

• Make sure to keep the same pace as your prior walks

• Apply any of the above short-term options for a longer duration

You can also start new activities such as biking, kayaking, exercise classes, etc. that are different from what you are doing currently. This will put new demand on your body and require it to burn more calories until it becomes more efficient at it. 

This is a great time to explore new activities you might enjoy doing. Finding exercise activities that are fun to you helps promote a healthier lifestyle. Remember that as you lose weight and increase your physical strength and ability, activities that seemed too difficult before may be possible now.

The key takeaway

As we perform a given form of exercise our body adapts and becomes more efficient at it. This is great from a physical viewpoint, however if you’re trying to lose weight this can slow or even stop your progress.

Increasing the difficulty of your exercise or finding new forms of exercise is a great way to overcome this exercise efficiency. At some point your body will become more efficient overall at any given activity, but think back to how difficult that first time you started an activity felt. 

If you can find an activity or increase your effort to replicate that feeling, then you are successfully overcoming your exercise efficiency. 

Once you have achieved your goal weight, continue doing your preferred activities daily to maintain your weight. By this point, you should have found several activities that you enjoy doing and that have become a lifestyle.

Remember that the first step is to just get started with something. As you progress you never know what new activity, you’ll find yourself enjoying. 

Written by: Adam Skowyra MPPD, RDN, LD