Does stretching help you lose weight? This is a great question because a lot of women are very confused by what actually causes weight loss.
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
In this article, we’ll show you why this is and what you need to focus on instead.
This is firstly because losing weight is about making an energy deficit. This is what causes weight loss.
Secondly, you cannot spot train body fat as such. In the same way that you cannot do ab exercises to get a slim stomach, you cannot do leg stretches to make your legs slimmer. What happens is you may build flexibility or tone, but it’s underneath and you’re not able to see it.
This is because your body fat stores work separately from your muscle tone.
Here, we’ll look at what causes weight loss, why stretching does not help you lose weight including common questions like does stretching help lose belly fat, and does stretching make your legs thinner.
What Causes Weight Loss?
Before, we get started with does stretching help you lose weight, let’s first start with the science of weight loss, before looking at what causes us to be toned.
The science of weight loss is that to lose weight, you need to make what we call an energy deficit.
Each day your body is burning energy, known as calories, which for most women will typically be between 1400 and 2000 each day. When you eat below what your body is burning, your body taps into its energy stores and you lose weight.
How this works is generally misunderstood though.
It takes a full 3500 calorie deficit to lose one pound (hence why the calories burnt in stretching are not enough to lose weight). This means, by making an energy deficit of 500 each day, that is one pound lost.
This is what you need to focus on to lose weight.
It does take a lot of commitment but gets you a lot better results to really focus on this. This is also important for getting more toned because as we’ll explain, you cannot spot train body fat.
Why Stretching Does Not Cause Weight Loss
As you can see above, losing weight is about the energy deficit. It’s important to understand, to get slimmer legs and stomach, you do need to focus on weight loss and the energy deficit because you cannot spot train.
Not only do we know this is the case, but lots of research has also tested this and shown it to be true (study, study, study).
In other words, in the same way, you cannot train a certain muscle group (like your stomach to get it slimmer), the same here applies with stretching.
Stretching may have some benefits, but you need to focus on weight loss to be able to see it and therefore have visible results.
There is really three parts to being toned. They are:
- Your body fat levels
- Your muscle tone
- How firmly your muscles are held
The first one here is the most important, which is your body fat levels.
We all have a certain body fat percentage, which at your ideal weight will typically be between 19 – 24%. Above this, this is where your body is storing excess weight throughout and it’s very normal that this is ending up on your stomach and legs.
As you reduce your body fat percentage, via an energy deficit, this is where your body will pull from its energy stores and your legs and stomach will begin to get slimmer.
What happens with working out including stretching is you may be building the tone, but it’s underneath and you’re unable to see it.
This is the problem with stretching itself. Yes, it may have benefits on flexibility and muscle tone but because you’re not lean enough, you don’t have visible results.
I’d rather tell you the truth here, in that to have visible results you need to focus on weight loss.
This is the reason stretching will not get you toned as such. You need to focus on getting to your ideal weight to effectively see your tone.
So, to the question of does stretching help you lose weight or make your legs or stomach slimmer, unfortunately, no, because it’s underneath your body fat levels.
Your core issue is the need to reduce your total body fat percentage.
Does Stretching Help You Lose Weight
Unfortunately, no.
It’s not bad for you as such, but it doesn’t cause weight loss. To lose weight, you need to make an energy deficit.
And yes, it may burn some calories, but this is not enough to make any real difference. It gets you a lot better results to focus on your nutrition and making an energy deficit.
As well as this you cannot stretch to get yourself slimmer legs or stomach, because as mentioned, you cannot spot train body fat.