If you’ve tried losing weight by exercising more and eating less, you might have been going about it all wrong like I did. These facts about metabolism are for anyone looking for the real solution to burning fat and building muscle for the long-term. There are no magic formulas, but unfortunately the majority of the health and fitness industry, gyms, and trainers fail to acknowledge these core principles to sustainable fat loss. Despite regularly exercising for 6-10 hours a week for more than half my life, I never achieved the fat loss I desired until I applied these principles below. By the time you’re done reading, you’ll know some of the real truths about what’s really required for sustainable fat loss (hint, it’s not exercise):

Fact 1: Exercise Doesn’t Burn As Much As You Think

Despite getting my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and getting a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, this fact I overlooked for so many years blew my mind. Of total calories burned, exercise only accounts on average for around 5% of total calories burned. While exercise is important for a whole variety of reasons, exercising to burn more calories and lose weight is not actually one of them (contrary to what everything in health and fitness says).

If your main strategy for losing weight is through exercise, you’re doing very little to move the needle when it comes to fat loss. 

Fact 2: Most People’s Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Accounts For >⅔ Calories Burned

Your BMR is the calories you burn simply to keep you alive while you're resting, but this is by far the most impactful in the metabolism equation. The more you diet to lose weight and the less you weigh, the lower your BMR will be, making it more and more difficult to keep losing weight. However, there’s one overlooked piece of this: the role your lean body mass plays in this equation.

You can see a huge increase in calories burned at rest simply by adding more lean muscle mass, making fat loss easier with less effort.

Fact 3: Calories Burned By Digesting Food+Daily Movement Can Be 5x Greater Than Calories Burned During Exercise

On average the calories you burn daily from digesting the food you eat, and your non-exercise daily movements, accounts for a total of 25% of calories burned. As mentioned earlier, exercise related activity only accounts for around 5%. That means that the foods you digest and time spent simply moving throughout the day has a 5x greater impact on your calories burned than exercise!

Prioritizing protein, which has a higher impact on the calories burned in the digestion process, as well as daily non-exercise movement such as walking, will have a much greater (and sustainable) impact on fat loss than trying to do it through exercise alone.

Don’t follow the lies of the fitness industry telling you that exercise is the best way to lose weight and burn calories. Exercise is extremely important, but to get the greatest impact on fat loss it should prioritize building lean muscle mass above HIIT training that simply burns calories. This will impact the metabolic equation much more over time, making it easier to lose weight without spending hours in the gym.