I'm Steve — MiniWorkoutDad!
Working Out for Weight Loss
How can a workout designed to build functional strength and cardio-vascular fitness, that you do only 75 mins per week, possibly help you shift unwanted fat? Read on to find out!
How can our workout help you lose weight?
I’m not going to pretend being overweight has been a significant problem in my life.
But, before you hit unsubscribe/ unfollow, let me explain why this workout is still for you…
First, let’s reset the terminology: we’re not really talking about losing weight.
Let’s talk body composition
You could lose weight by chopping off an arm, so it’s not weight per se we’re trying to lose. What we’re actually talking about is “body composition”: the proportion of muscle and fat.
Over my 52 years, my main body composition problem has been putting on and retaining muscle (which is why I’m so surprised how effective my workout has been!). But, perhaps your problem with body composition is a tendency to store and hold onto fat? And, perhaps you’re wondering how a workout that builds muscle efficiently can help you?
You’ll never work off a bad diet
The first thing to be clear about is, no workout on this planet can burn off a bad diet. Excessive calories will continue to be stored as fat, even if you’re giving your workouts 100% every time.
And, the same is true of cardio. If you’ve ever puffed and panted your way through 20 torturous minutes on a treadmill, static bike or rowing machine and then checked the estimated calories burned, you know why; it takes an inordinate physical effort to burn off a single sweet treat!
Despite this fact, exercise is absolutely essential to losing unwanted fat, as will be proven shortly.
Why doesn’t exercise burn more calories?
The simple fact is, the activity we consciously undertake daily, is the tip of the iceberg. Just powering bodily functions, keeping your heart beating and your blood warm, uses a lot more: 4 times more!
Typical calories burned [1]:
- Basal & Resting Metabolic Rate (keeping the lights on): 50-70%
- Digestion (thermic effect of food): ~10%
- Voluntary physical activity: 10-20%
The basal metabolic rate is the minimum amount of energy expenditure compatible with life; “resting” is measured when laying down not digesting or moving and is generally 10% higher than basal.
Tick every box in 25 minutes, 3 times a week Do the simple workout you can stick to and…
Find out moreVoluntary physical activity has the most variable energy consumption, because sometimes we’re active and sometimes were lazy and sometimes people do crazy things like run marathons!
When we exercise, we are pushing the 10-20% (voluntary physical activity) [1]. And, that includes the calories needed to power every single voluntary movement you make in the (roughly) 16 hours you are awake each day.
So, the bad news is, even if you do 50% more than the average person, you’re still burning more calories just by existing.
You can burn more calories just existing
The good news is, you can influence the big 70% chunk as well, which is where our 75 minutes a week works. Yes, it means you’re more active three days a week. But, more importantly, it’s going to change your body composition by adding lean muscle.
Maintaining muscle costs calories – that’s why we shed it when we don’t use it – which means more calories burned regardless of activity. Now, we’re influencing the 70%!
And, that’s why the effect on body composition, not calories burned is what makes a workout effective for “weight loss” (fat loss). Because, muscle burns twice as many calories as fat per day [2] just for maintenance.
You can skip the scales though, because you won’t get lighter; muscle weighs about 22% more than fat by volume.
Bigger muscles are like bigger engines: less economical!
After a few months of consistent resistance training, you might add 2 to 4.5lbs of lean muscle. And that might need an 30 extra calories a day maintenance. That’s because skeletal muscle has a specific metabolic rate of 13 kcal per kilo per day [2].
What? Only 30 calories a day?!
Yes, only 30. But, here’s the rub, bigger muscles need more energy to fuel activity as well. It’s like having a car with a bigger engine; you get less miles per gallon (calorie). Build muscle and any exercise or activity burns more calories. It’s a win-win!
If you’re still thinking “it’s not worth the effort, I’ll stick to dieting instead“, then maybe you need to hear what just dieting can do to your body?
Dieting can make your body composition worse!
Over 30, if you’re not building muscle, then you’re losing it through a well-documented physiological process called Sarcopenia.
Losing muscle constantly reduces the size of your engine. Meaning you need fewer and fewer calories. To avoid storing excess calories as fat, you’ll have to keep reducing your calorie intake as you age. Your diet is only going to get more restrictive and, well, sad.
On top of that, roughly 20% of the weight you lose on a diet isn’t fat [3]; it what’s called fat-free mass and that includes muscle. Without any compensatory measure (like resistance training and increased protein intake [4]), you’re slimming down the size of your engine as well.
And, if you’re overweight and sedentary and on a very low calorie diet, you can depress your resting metabolic rate [5], so even fewer calories are burned.
So, dieting alone (especially crash dieting) can lead to the worst outcome: fewer calories burned in the 70% basal metabolic category.
Weight loss dieting has a 2% success rate
The US Federal Trade Commission suggests that diets have a 98 percent failure rate. Knowing the science, it’s easy to see why.
But, you cannot ignore your diet because, as we already know, it’s a huge ask to burn off excess calories doing exercise. And, also, because you need to be eating properly to have:
- The protein to synthesize into new muscle*
- The essential nutrients to promote an anabolic (muscle-building) state.
* Several scientific studies [6], [4] have shown that as we age, we need to eat more protein to stimulate muscle-protein synthesis (muscle building).
The top three tactics of fat loss
Your best tactics to lose unwanted fat and keep it off are a combination of:
- + Healthy calorie deficit (not crash) protein and nutrient dense diet
- + Intense resistance training (like doing our workout)
- + Time
Once you’ve reached your goal, you can increase calories to maintenance level and maintain your muscle mass through continued resistance training.
In this recipe, time is key. Accept a longer time frame and you’re far more likely to succeed in sustaining the fat loss longer term.
Working out for weight loss in a nutshell
You won’t achieve effective and sustainable fat loss through extreme dieting, extreme exercise or endless cardio sessions. A balanced approach, that prioritises body recomposition is much more likely to succeed. But, you must accept gradual, consistent progress.
Crash diets are more likely to cannibalise muscle and lower your basal metabolic rate. Likewise, insane exercise regimens are impossible to stick to and more likely to leave you injured than growing new lean muscle.
Doing three tough 25min sessions of our workout a week, combined with a good nutritious diet at slightly less calories than you need, could be your best strategy for long-term fat loss. But, you’ll also need to ensure you get adequate sleep and manage your stress (chronically elevated cortisol levels can cause fat gain). Embrace this holistic approach with patience and you’ll set yourself up for a healthier, more active later life.
Steve — MiniWorkoutDad
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References
1 – Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy -> Factors Affecting Energy Expenditure and Requirements. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Food and Nutrition Board; Committee on the Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy. Jan 2023
2 – Evaluation of Specific Metabolic Rates of Major Organs and Tissues: Comparison Between Men and Women. ZiMian Wang, Zhiliang Ying, Anja Bosy-Westphal, Junyi Zhang, Martin Heller, Wiebke Later, Steven B. Heymsfield and Manfred J. Müller – American Journal of Human Biology, May 2011
3 – Associations between the rate, amount, and composition of weight loss as predictors of spontaneous weight regain in adults achieving clinically significant weight loss: A systematic review and meta-regression. Jake Turicchi, Ruairi O’Driscoll, Graham Finlayson, Kristine Beaulieu, Kevin Deighton, R James Stubbs – Obesity Reviews – March 2019
4 – Preserving Healthy Muscle during Weight Loss. Edda Cava, Nai Chien Yeat, Bettina Mittendorfer – Advances in Nutrition, May 2017
5 – Impact of energy intake and exercise on resting metabolic rate. P A Molé – Sports Medicine, Aug 1990.
6 – Weight Loss Strategies and the Risk of Skeletal Muscle Mass Loss. David McCarthy and Aloys Berg – Nutrients journal, July 2021