What's the best physical activity for weight loss? | Filippo Ongaro
To learn the scientific methodology of physical training, watch the "Build Your Body" video course ➡️ https://hubs.ly/H0LT4vW0
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Many people have asked me, "What's the best physical activity for weight loss?"
Remember that everyone is different, so training varies from person to person and must be personalized, and to do this, you must first understand the scientific methodology of physical training.
A question that always comes up is: what's the best physical activity for weight loss?
I must say that, after many years of following the fitness and weight-loss world, I've heard all sorts of things.
Every year something new comes along that finally seems to be the miracle solution, but then we inevitably end up back at the same three or four rules, which are always the same and have never changed.
Perhaps every year we create this hope that these rules can be overcome because they are as classic as they are boring, and alas, they are:
you must eat less,
you must move more,
you must eat healthily.
As for physical training, despite many attempts, a training protocol has never emerged that is scientifically completely superior in producing weight loss results.
Now, I must make a necessary premise, because I know there are many experts who read my emails: it's clear that there are differences, differences that have even been quantified, but, alas, they don't apply to everyone.
So the real issue is that a good professional—a sports doctor, a dietitian, or a personal trainer—must personalize their approach because, while those basic rules are fairly general and work for everyone, the metabolic and hormonal response to changes in diet and physical activity is truly individual.
My answer to the initial question is that, after many years of experience in the field, both as a professional and as a person who has always been interested in fitness, I have never found anything that makes a huge difference, either in terms of nutrition or physical training.
What I have always found most effective is a combination of two types of activity:
an aerobic, low-intensity, long-duration cardio activity that aims to increase lipolysis, meaning the burning of calories—but of fat, not sugar, as higher-intensity physical activity does;
a strength-based activity, done with weights, which has the benefit of maintaining muscle mass despite a calorie-restricted diet.
This ensures that the basal metabolism, or the number of calories burned in 24 hours, doesn't drop excessively, which happens with many weight-loss approaches and dramatically penalizes a person because, obviously, if you consume less in 24 hours, the deficit you created by reducing your nutrition is no longer enough to lose weight.
So the strategy I've personally always found most effective is to combine aerobic activity done on an empty stomach with more strength-training activity that works the muscles and has the benefit of maintaining muscle mass and therefore the basal metabolism as intact as possible.
A fasted aerobic activity, done for example early in the morning before breakfast, could be walking, a moderate jog, a bit of cycling, or any type of activity that doesn't lead to the muscles using only sugars.
This should be assessed more precisely using a heart rate monitor and making sure not to overdo it. Instead, increase the duration, which should be at least 30-40 minutes.
I understand that these are complex mechanisms, difficult to summarize in an email. That's why, if you're interested in learning more about these topics and want to do so with me, I suggest you immediately watch the video course "Build Your Body," which discusses the scientific methodology of physical training.
So, how do you create and structure a physical training program from a scientific perspective, and what are the parameters we need to learn to control?
#weightloss #physicalactivity #weightloss