Exercise can help you lose weight by burning calories and by building calorie-burning muscle. Choose a modality that you like, so you are more likely to stick with an exercise routine. If you belong to a fitness center, consider using multiple pieces of equipment to prevent burnout, injury and your body from becoming too efficient at one particular exercise.
Treadmill
In just a half hour, a 150-lb. woman can burn 350 calories going 6 mph. Do this five times a week to lose 1/2 lb.–with no other changes. If you increase your pace or add hills, your calorie burn will be greater. If you are new to exercise, the treadmill is friendly for beginners. Start out with a steady-state walk at about 3.5 mph to burn about 300 calories in an hour for a 160-lb. person. As you feel more comfortable, you may hike up hills, add faster speeds to power walk or even interval train by alternating bursts of running with your walk to increase your calorie burn. A study in the “International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism” published in 2010 illustrated that running is a preferred exercise for fat burning. In this study, participants working at the same relative intensity burned significantly more fat when running than when cycling.
Elliptical Trainer
Because your feet never leave the pedals, an elliptical workout offers a low-impact workout but still challenges the cardiovascular system and burns a lot of calories. If approached with intensity, a 150-lb. person can burn almost as many calories in a half hour as when jogging. Try wearing a heart rate monitor when working on the elliptical to be sure you are working in a high aerobic zone to truly scorch calories. Select an elliptical machine with arm poles to burn even more calories.
One Piece Home Gyms
One piece home gyms are usually advertised on infomercials and include models such as the Bowflex, Crossbow by Weider and Poweflex by Gold’s gym. These units allow you to exercise the back, chest, shoulder, leg and arm muscles with cable resistance. Although strength training burns fewer calories than cardio exercise, it helps encourage the development of lean muscle mass. A body that has more lean mass burns more calories at rest–increasing your overall daily calorie burn and making weight management easier. Use these units as a circuit to maximize calorie burn–complete different exercises in quick succession with no break between them to keep your heart rate up and your body moving.
About this Author
Andrea Cespedes is a professionally trained chef who has focused studies in nutrition. With more than 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, she coaches cycling and running and teaches Pilates and yoga. She is an American Council on Exercise-certified personal trainer and has degrees from Princeton and Columbia University.
