The reasons for someone not exercising are many, ranging from not being bothered and losing rhythm to not having enough time. Whatever the reason, exercise is a concept that we have been aware of since we slipped on our first pair of white plimsolls at school. And yet it is still elusive.

If calorie intake is reduced, it can stall the metabolism as the body seeks to conserve energy

The promotion of exercise is a relatively new concept. It got a massive boost in the 1950s when lifestyle diseases overtook congenital diseases as the number one cause of death. But despite so much promotion we are generally less active and less healthy.

At some point in time you may have considered your health and how you might improve it – exercise would also have come into the equation. Since we’re still in the first months of the new year, you may be at this intersection, or perhaps you are already finding your current regime hard to maintain. Reframing how you approach exercise and understanding a few important realities with regards to what it can and cannot do for you may help you build a better relationship with it.

The current approach to exercise is based on the notion that we need to eat less and exercise more. When we fail to comply with this mantra, we usually blame lack of will power or discipline. However, there is good reason to believe that it is not so much that it doesn’t work, but that it can’t work. Eating less and exercising more goes against the fundamental design of the body. If calorie intake is reduced, it can stall the metabolism as the body seeks to conserve energy.

Not only that – when a cycle of eating less ends and normal eating patterns are resumed, it can take three months or more for your metabolism to boot up to normal levels. In most cases, this leaves you feeling sluggish.

Studies have also shown that people who tend to eat less also tend to move less, thus making exercise a much harder task to sustain.

Given the choice of eating and exercise as a tool for health and weight, what you eat is by far the most important factor. Get your nutrition right and it will put you in a much better position to think about how you might like to exercise. The current models offered fail in so much that they are focused on promoting volume and intensity and never consistency.

The role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated. In fact, studies clearly show that exercise is quite ineffective when it comes to weight loss. A research group known as the Cochrane Collaboration conducted the most comprehensive study on the impact of exercise on weight loss. Their review included 43 studies. The average amount of exercise prescribed in these studies was 45 minutes, three to five days a week. The studies lasted from three to 12 months.

The studies that compared diet alone to exercise alone showed that the dieters lost between three and 14 kilos, while the exercisers lost between half a kilo and two kilos.

Other studies in this review compared the effect of diet and exercise with diet alone. Results showed that the average weight loss for diet and exercise combined was 3.5 kilos to 18 kilos. The groups that focused exclusively on dieting lost between two and 17 kilos.

So for all the extra sweat and dedication the difference in results is depressingly little. This is not to say that exercise is not important – on the contrary, it still plays a massive role in both aesthetics and health. But if you are exercising for the purposes of weight loss, you would have already set yourself up for failure from the outset.

The focus should be on finding a type of exercise or environment that suits your personality and lifestyle and is therefore more manageable and sustainable. Rather than focusing on exercise for weight loss, finding an activity that can be maintained should be the priority.

Deciding on criteria that matter most to you should be the focus and exploring the options that tick the most boxes to match these criteria may actually bring you closer to what is best for your needs and help you build a more fulfilling and less tiresome relationship with exercise.

Bryn Kennard is a Pilates instructor at Bodyworks.