Cardio exercises to lose weight
There are many misconceptions on what exercises are the best to perform in order to lose fat. When attempting to lose weight, you will be lowering your body fat percentage, and ultimately you will become more defined.
In order to lose weight you will have to make sure that you have an effective exercise routine and a diet that works with it. It may not be as simple as just getting a fair amount of exercise to lose fat. The exercise that you do will play a major role in how much weight you lose.
Is Walking a Good Exercise for Fat Loss?
You will burn some calories from walking for a lengthy period of time but it’s not a great cardio exercise if you’re attempting to lose weight. Walking is only good to keep yourself active and can be a way to turn a sedentary lifestyle into a much healthier one. If you’re looking to get rid of excessive fat, walking isn’t the most effective cardio exercise to get.
How Effective is Jogging and Running?
If you choose to jog or run, you’ll be breaking a sweat. Running a few miles on the track at your local gym, or even outdoors, can be a great way to shred off a few extra pounds. Combined with a healthy diet, this could be one of the better cardio exercises to lose fat from. However, there are still better and more enjoyable exercises for fat loss.
How Beneficial is Biking?
There are a few different variations of biking and some are better for fat loss than others. If you’re going to be biking outdoors you will be able to enjoy yourself while burning calories, but it’s not always the highest intensity level. Ideally you will want to use high intensity interval training cardio exercises to lose fat from. This can be performed while biking but is best when done indoors on an exercise bike.
Stairmaster
There is a lot of debate on whether the Stairmaster is a better piece of exercise equipment for fat loss than a treadmill is. The amount of calories burnt when using each piece of equipment is generally the same, but the intensity level is what matters.
You may want to diversify your cardio routine by using both the Stairmaster and treadmill (or track) in order to keep yourself moving. If you do one type of cardio continuously your body will become adapted to it, so it’s best to keep a high intensity level spread across different exercises.
Treadmill
The treadmill is definitely a great option when looking for cardio exercises to lose fat from. The grade level feature on most treadmills can be an easy way to burn a large amount of calories while walking or jogging at a low pace. However, you may still want to consider running on a track or outside instead as sprinting on a treadmill can be difficult.
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
HIIT is the best way to burn calories and lose fat. The idea of HIIT is to complete short sprints which will ultimately burn more calories and cause a greater fat loss. Your body doesn’t become accustomed to the exercise as the short bursts are shocks to your body which can be much more effective than exercising at a low pace for a longer period of time. Since your body can only reach maximum speed for about five to seven seconds, completing multiple short sprints can help you focus on only high intensity exercising.
While HIIT exercises are not the best for working on your endurance, they can help tremendously for fat loss. Many cardio exercises can be done with high intensity intervals but the most common exercises would be running and biking. As a beginner to HIIT, you should follow a sprinting routine such as this:
To start off, you will want to start by jogging at a moderate pace for 15 minutes. You should be going at a speed where you can still talk but can’t hold a conversation. After the 15 minutes are over you will begin sprinting, this is where the high intensity part kicks in.
After the 15 minutes are up you will want to go into a sprint for exactly one minute, make sure to keep at the highest pace possible. After that minute is done you will slow down and walk for another minute. Repeat the 60 second intervals five times, and then the exercise is over.
Other Cardio Exercises
There are still many other cardio exercises to lose fat from. You could consider aerobic exercises, plyometrics, training on a punching bag, or even joining a martial arts class. Other enjoyable activities that can burn off a lot of calories include lane swimming, pickup basketball games, and most other sports. Lifting weights is another option, whether lifting heavy (for low reps) or light (for high reps), as it is a way to burn calories.
The most important thing to remember when choosing which cardio exercises you do is that the intensity level plays a major role in how easily you lose fat. You can spend hours a day on cardio and still not manage to lose much weight, and ultimately you’re harming your body. It’s definitely recommended that you consider high intensity interval training as a weight loss exercise. You can even incorporate HIIT into other activities, such as basketball.
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I would like to argue that all the above forms of exercise could help you turn burn fat and lose weight. They all burn calories. They key is to ensure you are taking in less calories than you burn. Its that simple. So yes, assuming you ate the same each day, walking on one day isnt going to give you the same benefits as running or HIIT, but walking will still give benefits.
I’m just hoping the above article wont discourage people from walking. You’ll simply burn less calories than running, but from a weight loss perspective, you could still lose just as much if you didnt eat as much.