Expert: Ken Alan - 8/26/2006

Question
hello ken
      two months back my weight was 104 kg..then i start cardio exercise regularly..and i lose 10 kg in 2 month but after that now last 2 week weight was not reduced further.it come to an stable.i never miss any day for cardio exercise.when i saw it is not reduced further then i do cardio exercise bit hard.but even with hard exercise i got no good result..it is still a stable..why it is happened..why it stop reducing..please tell me
akhil  

Answer
Hi,

Glad you're exercising.  It hasn't been 10kg of body fat you've lost in the first two months of your exercise program.  It's been a little body fat and mostly 10kg of excess water weight that you've lost. When you first begin to do a lot of exercise, initial weight loss is mainly water, not fat. It appears your body has stablized it's water level, which is one of the reasons you haven't seen your weight change for the last couple of weeks.  

Losing fat weight comes at a slower rate.  To lose 1 kg of fat, you have to burn about 7700 calories.  That's quite a bit of activity.   You now need to be patient in the weight loss department, because it will occur much slower, but it will occur, so don't be discouraged.  

Unless you also reduce your caloric intake, weight loss by exercise alone is a gradual process.  After the initial big weight loss (of mostly water), it can be upseting because you think you'll keep losing weight at the same rate.  Not so.  And your body is telling you it's not so because you haven't lost any weight even though you've continued to do regular cardio workouts.

If you really want to or need to lose additional weight, you have to look at your diet, too.  Diet also affects weight loss and weight control.

But keep on doing your cardio.  There's a lot of other major benefits you're getting that are very beneficial for your health.  Understand that at this point, losing weight by cardio exercise alone will be a much more gradual process.  It takes a long time to do 7700 calories worth of cardio exercise.  A fast walk of a distance of 10 kilometers might burn around 600 - 700 calories.  You'll have to do the equivalant of about 10 of those 10K walks/jogs to lose 1kg of fat with exercise alone.  If you want to increase the rate of weight loss, consider a slight reduction in calories, too.

Hope this helps.