7 Useful Exercise Tips for Healthy Weight Loss

Feb 29, 2024 By Madison Evans

Exercise is necessary if you want to live a healthy life. If you are obese or overweight, then you are more prone to several disorders, including heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol and other problems. Being healthy and weight loss are associated with each other. However, with a good diet and regular exercise, you can lose weight effectively. Diet and exercise are the two most important factors that you should consider if you are thinking of losing weight, and there must be a balance between them. If you are following your diet plan but not exercising regularly or you exercise excessively without having the required diet, then you may not get the desired results.

Why Exercise Matters?

According to the data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 70% of Americans are suffering from obesity and are overweight. At the same time, only 25% of them meet the recommended guidelines for physical activities like aerobic and muscle-strengthening workouts. According to the research, exercising should be part of the equation if you are also planning to lose weight. Along with the weight loss, you can enjoy several other benefits of the exercises. It helps to improve the mood, strengthen the muscles and bones, and reduce the risks of cardiovascular and chronic diseases.

Potential Exercise Tips for Weight Loss

You may find many exercise tips on the internet, but we have listed some of the best exercises that may help speed up the process of burning calories. Below are the seven best exercises that will make the weight loss process easier for you.

Walking

One of the best exercises to lose weight is walking, which is also convenient for a beginner. You can easily walk without feeling overwhelmed, and there is no need to buy any equipment. Recent studies have shown that walking is effective in minimizing heart diseases and strokes and also improves cardiovascular fitness. Walking is referred to as a low-impact exercise, which means it does not stress your joints. Many studies have found that a person can reduce his body fat by taking a long-distance walk at a slower pace. To take a start, you can walk 30 minutes 5-6 times per week. Eventually, your frequency and the number of walks will increase as you build your stamina.

Cycling

Cycling is also a non-weight-bearing and low-impact exercise that doesn't stress out your joints and is accessible to a broad range of people. An average person can burn from 400 to 500 calories per hour through cycling. Research shows that cycling is effective in reducing body weight as well as fat mass. If you do your cycling sessions per week for over 12 weeks, you will be able to shed 3.2% of your body weight and 5% of your fat mass. Also, it reduces the chances of other chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer and improves insulin sensitivity.

Lifting Weights

Any type of resistance training that is effective in building muscles is referred to as weight lifting. For lifting weights, you can use any kind of equipment, from dumbbells, kettlebells, resistance bands and other strength-training machines. It does not matter what type of equipment you use as long as there is a weight to lift to strengthen muscles. An average person can burn about 7.6 calories per minute of weight lifting. Also, several studies have claimed that if you do weight lifting for 11 minutes three times a week, it will increase your metabolic rate by 7.4%. Moreover, your body continues to burn calories even after many hours of this weight training.

Interval Training

It is more commonly known as the High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It is a short burst of intense exercises with alternating recovery periods. This training session typically lasts for almost 10-30 minutes and is effective in burning many calories. The results of one study claimed that it burns 20 to 35% more calories in a minute than any other exercise like treadmill or cycling. It is also considered an extremely time-efficient way of exercising. The best way to do this training is with a lower-intensity modality and extended rest periods. To get started, choose any exercise like running, biking or jumping and select your rest timing. For instance, pedal as hard as you can for 30 seconds, then pedal slowly for a minute for the next 15 minutes.

Swimming

Swimming is another efficient way to reduce the body weight. However, how many calories you burn depends upon your swimming style. Most calories can be burned while you are doing breaststroke, which is then followed by the butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle. If you are crawling or going at a moderate pace, you can burn 9 to 11.5 calories per minute of swimming. Research showed that swimming 60 minutes 3 times a week can significantly reduce body fat, improve flexibility, and reduce the chances of heart diseases and diabetes like high cholesterol or triglycerides. It is also a low-impact exercise and suitable for those with injuries and joint or muscle pain.

Pilates and Yoga

They may not burn as many calories as other intense exercises, but they are still considered one of the best fitness tools. You can burn up to 108 calories if you are taking a 30-minute beginner Pilates class and 168 calories in an advanced class of the same duration. On the other hand, yoga can also burn a fair amount of calories and also comes up with several other benefits like improvement in the body posture, relaxation of the mind, and increased muscle mass and tone.

Jogging or Running

Last but not least, we have jogging or running on our list. An average person can burn about 10.8 calories per minute while jogging and 13.2 calories while running. The key difference between the two is the speed. If your speed is between 4 and 6 mph, then it is considered jogging, while if your speed is over 6 mph, then you are running. For the start-up, you can fly up to 20-30 minutes, four times a week, to get the desired results.

Conclusion

These were some great exercises for burning calories. However, there could be more exercise that may help you to reduce your body weight and fat. Most importantly, choose an exercise you love to do because then it will increase the workout time, and you can lose weight faster.