This may be the biggest myth about weight loss

Does sweating three times a week at your local gym actually help you lose weight?

This research says no.

Vox compiled a mammoth list of over 60 research papers which argue that exercise is actually not the best way to shed that stubborn Game of Thrones binge weight.

Shock! Horror!

Before you cancel your gym membership, let’s break down the findings.

Researcher Kevin Hall, of the National Institutes of Health told Vox:

On exercise and weight loss. We need to rebrand exercise…exercise isn’t a weight loss tool per se, it’s excellent for health is probably the best single thing you can do other than stopping smoking to improve your health.

There are three ways the body burns fat and expends energy, and physical activity accounts for only 10-30 per cent

This means that the majority of fat burned every day is from resting metabolism

...which the studies claim people do not have much control over.

According to one study by Hall, if a 200-pound man ran for four hours a week and kept his calorie intake the same, and did this for an entire month, he’d only lose five pounds.

The NHS states that the key to effective and long-term weight-loss is a combination of an exercise and a diet regime.

Metabolic compensation is also a factor

Hall also argues that your body actually gets used to exercise and as a result, your resting metabolism lowers and you end up burning less energy at rest.

The best way to lose weight, the studies conclude, is simply to eat sensibly and significantly lower your sugar intake.

However, these studies need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The research uses “exercise” to refer mainly to aerobic activity like running, however a large body of recent research shows that building muscle mass – strength training – is actually the most efficient way to lose weight because the higher your muscle mass the more fat you will burn.

Here's the video its entirety, below:

HT Vox

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