• Question: Why does excercise help us loose weight, what actually is going on in our body?

    Asked by whgraceandaim to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Great question 🙂

      When we exercise we are making our muscles work really hard and so they need lots of energy. This energy is created by our cells (or more specifically, little bean-shaped structures inside our cells called mitochondria). Mitochondria create this energy by using up sugars and fats. It is this fat-loss that helps us lose weight.

      Confusingly, we can actually gain weight when we exercise because if we exercise a lot then we will build up our muscles and so the increased muscles will make us heavier! This is good weight gain though! It is better for us if more of our weight comes from muscle than if more of it comes from fat.

      There is a blog post here: http://gurumagazine.org/health-fitness/make-friends-with-your-mitochondria-your-treadmill-is-lying-to-you-anyway/ that talks in a bit more detail about mitochondria, exercise and how we can make our cells have more mitochondria. (It is a little complicated but have a go – if there is anything you don’t understand you can always ask again on here 🙂 )

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