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If you’re overweight, losing 3 stone could be life-changing. It might seem like a lot at first. 3 stone, or 42 lbs. But over the course of a year, it’s not that much. In fact, it’s only 3.5 lbs a month – less than 1 lb a week. The trick is consistency. In this article, we look at 6 key reasons to lose 3 stone.
Even if you’ve tried 3 or more diets in the past 3 years, hope is not lost. Weight loss is possible, and we’ve put together some weighty reasons for you to carry on into the coming months and beyond.
1. Keep heart disease at bay
Maintaining a healthy weight helps your health enormously. By being in a healthy weight range, you reduce your risk of developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. All of which can contribute to heart disease.
Even if you already have one of the aforementioned conditions, keeping yourself at a healthy weight will help stave off the effects. Your heart works tirelessly around the clock to keep you going. So why not do your bit to make things a little easier for it?
2. Increase your confidence
Chances are if you think you’re carrying too much weight, you’ll worry others will judge you. It’s no surprise that being overweight can make you self-conscious.
Do you avoid certain things because you’re worried about how you’ll look? If you feel like hiding away because of your weight, think of how much freer you’d feel without that burden.
Why miss out on things you want to do? It might be hard work at first, but after a while, you’ll have a spring in your step. Chances are, if you lose 3 stone in weight, your confidence will grow!
3. Go easier on your joints
The heavier you are, the more stress you put on your joints. Due to changes in connective tissue and cartilage, your joints weaken as you age anyway. If you’re overweight, you’ll only add to their degradation.
By keeping yourself in a healthy weight range, you’ll keep your joints in better condition for longer. Research suggests that losing weight could actually help stop the development of arthritis.
So why not aim to lose 3 stone or more now, to make sure you can move more easily in later life?
4. Lose 3 stone & you’ll live longer
You might have guessed this, but losing weight can increase your lifespan. Being more resistant to heart disease, arthritis, and other risks that come with age, you’ll add years.
According to a study funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research, obesity can reduce life expectancy by 8 years. In addition to that, it may reduce the number of years of ‘healthy life’ by up to 19 years.
So if you’re obese and want to lose 3 stone or more, you could stand to live almost a quarter of your life in poor quality. If you put in some hard work now, you’ll reap the rewards later on.
Also Read: The Science Behind The Newcastle Diet
5. Improve your immune system
Your immune system is made up of many parts that work constantly to protect you from illness. Because so many different things are involved in keeping your immune system running properly, it can be a bit of a delicate balance.
Obesity can easily tip this balance. Scientists have found that excess fat in the body leads to the production of pro-inflammatory immune cells. This type of immune cell actually acts to make diseases worse.
By losing weight, you’ll limit the production of these cells and restore order to your immune system. So you’ll feel better in general and recover from illness more quickly.
6. Wear whatever you want!
If you’re going to live longer and feel better, you’ll have more opportunities to strut your stuff. And if you lose weight, not only will you feel confident enough to wear what you want, but you’ll fit in whatever you want, too.
Interested? If you want to lose 3 stone or more, or have attempted 3 or more weight loss programmes and have been trying to lose weight for over 3 years, Alevere Therapy can help you get there. Some of our patients have lost 9 stone in 6 months!
We have clinics in Carlisle, Newcastle, Berwick and Stockton. If you’re nearby, get in touch, and we’ll send you a free brochure so you can find out exactly how you’ll lose weight in 2023.
Great ways to lose weight
We’ve given you a few reasons why you should lose weight, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t include a few good methods to help you achieve your weight loss goal. While it’s important to implement these methods into your daily routine, it’s just as important to go at your own pace and make them a long-term habit. There’s no point pushing yourself too much to lose three stone in a week, only to put it back on the next. With that in mind, here are a few options for you to lose weight.
Also Read: Does Muscle Weigh More Than Fat?
Regular exercise
First up is regular exercise. As much of a pain as it is, exercise is the golden goose of weight loss. Not only does exercise help you lose weight by burning calories, but it also provides a whole host of benefits that will improve your overall health and quality of life.
You’ll build muscle, improve your resting heart rate, reduce the risk of certain ailments, and boost the amount of energy you have during the day. Better yet, once you’re done training your body to match your current level of exercise, future exercises will be much easier to complete. This will help you reach and maintain a sustainable weight without an extreme amount of effort on your part.
This is all well and good, but what exactly are good exercises for losing weight? Well, it depends on your specific weight loss goals and if you have particular areas you want to work on or if you’d like a general approach. Walking, for example, is going to have a pronounced effect on your legs, but not a huge impact on other parts of your body. Here are a few exercises that you can do to burn off those calories.
Also Read: How To Stop Overeating Once & For All
Swimming
Swimming is great as a calorie burn exercise. It’s fun, fairly accessible, and quite pleasant to do. You won’t be coated in sweat and sore from muscle pain, at the least. You can expect to burn roughly 216 calories every half an hour if you’re a person of average weight, depending on your chosen stroke. Backstrokes, for example, are considered to be the most efficient swimming stroke for burning calories. For an effective exercise that doesn’t put a whole lot of pressure on your joints, look no further than swimming.
Cycling
Cycling is another excellent calorie-burning exercise, one that is more accessible than you might think. There are plenty of outdoor bikes available for any terrain or purpose imaginable. If the outdoors isn’t for you, or you’d rather not brave the bad weather, you can always pick up an indoor bike, like a Peloton.
No matter your choice of bike, you’ll be able to do a wide range of exercises, each burning a high number of calories and having other benefits to your health. You can expect to burn roughly 252 calories every 30 minutes on a stationary bike, or roughly 288 calories outdoors, assuming average conditions. Cycling can also lead to better health, with a reduced likelihood of heart disease, cancer, and a generally higher level of fitness, all without putting too much pressure on your joints.
If you’re prepared to work up a sweat, you can do some High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which is a term for short bursts of intense activity, followed by low-intensity periods, and rinse and repeat. The Tabata ride is one example of a HIIT exercise, one that excels at burning both fat and calories, and greatly improves your fitness. Better yet, it has all these benefits and more for only 4 minutes out of your day.
Walking
Walking is as simple as it is effective. It can be done pretty much anywhere and whenever you have the chance. Even a ten-minute walk around the block while you wait for your appointment at the hairdresser will go a long way. That said, if you’re serious about walking to lose weight, you’ll need to do a bit more than that. But exactly how much walking to lose three stone is needed?
Unfortunately, the answer is quite a bit. There are roughly 147000 calories in three stone of fat, and that’s quite a figure to burn just through walking. If we take the average walking speed of 3 mph, and the average weight of a man in the U.K. of 188.3 lbs, you can expect to lose about 270 calories per hour. This works out to be roughly 544 hours of pure walking. That’s quite a lot, right?
As daunting as it may seem, don’t be put off by this kind of figure. The objective isn’t to lose three stone just by exercising alone. Instead, it is to create a calorie deficit that helps steadily bring down your weight in a sustainable fashion over time. The question is, what is the best way to do this?
Creating a calorie deficit
Exercise is only one part of achieving the main goal – creating a calorie deficit. To maximise your weight loss progress, it’s important to pair exercise with a good diet. This doesn’t necessarily mean eating salads every day, though. As long as you burn more calories than you take in, thereby creating a calorie deficit, you’ll be achieving your weight loss goals in no time.
Creating a calorie deficit is easier than you might think. Your body burns an awful lot of calories each day, even if you aren’t highly active. To be exact, the average inactive man will need roughly 2,200 calories per day just to remain at his current weight, assuming an average weight, of course. To create a calorie deficit, all you need to do is consume fewer calories than this figure, exercise more to burn off the excess, or both for faster results.
While exercise is easy enough to get right, settling on a good diet for weight loss can be tricky. Non-stop salads might work for some, but it can be tempting to give into temptation if you don’t add in some good stuff. Luckily, protein is in a lot of great ingredients, and it helps with weight loss, too!
Adding some fish, poultry, and lean meats to your diet will make for a varied meal plan that tastes good, without costing you a lot of calories. You could also implement more dairy products into your diet, as many contain both protein and healthy fats. No matter your choice, make sure to track your calorie intake, and target a daily calorie deficit of roughly 500.
Frequently asked questions
We get quite a few questions related to the topic of losing three stone, so we thought we’d collate some of the most common questions and provide answers in one go.
How long would it take to lose three stone?
It depends on how seriously you take it, and partially on your body and its unique qualities. That said, it’s perfectly possible to lose three stone within 5-6 months if you target a weekly weight loss of about 1-2 lbs. A lower target might make it more manageable for you, but it will see you reach your goal more within a 10-12 month time frame.
Can you lose three stone in three months?
While this is certainly possible, it is a tough target to set, especially if this is your first time actively pursuing a weight loss goal. You’re looking at losing 42 lbs in total, which is going to require a notable calorie deficit to achieve in this time frame. This can make it pretty easy to fall back into poor habits, which itself can have a knock-on effect on your confidence and determination. Remember, weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s better to take your time and guarantee you lose the weight, rather than push yourself too far and miss your target.
Will I have loose skin if I lose three stone?
In all likelihood, losing three stone will not cause you to have loose skin. If you worry about loose skin, either for this particular weight loss goal or another, make sure to take your time and factor in a good amount of exercise. The two together drastically reduce the risk, but it will also depend on your age, current weight, and genetics.
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