While most people wish that there was some magical secret to losing weight, sometimes sticking to the basics can be the most effective method. The basics of losing weight are simple: diet and exercise. However, people tend to be a little more accustomed to dieting, whereas less people understand the tricks of exercise when it comes to losing weight.
The important part of any exercise regimen is dedication and discipline. Without those, exercise is nothing more than an activity when it comes to weight loss. In addition to the right mindset, you can focus on certain workouts to lose weight more effectively. The best exercises to lose weight come in two different categories.
1. Cardio:
It’s no secret that you should be doing some cardio if your intention is to burn calories and lose weight. However, in order to burn calories, most individuals walk or jog for 20 minutes every day. Contrary to standard exercise practices, the best cardio exercise for losing weight is interval training.
Interval training elevates your metabolism the greatest amount and the metabolic increase can last for up to 24 hours after your workout. That means that not only will you burn the most calories while doing it, but you will also burn calories for a longer period.
For those who are not familiar with interval training, it is a cardio workout, like walking, jogging, swimming, etc., in which you interject brief moments of intense effort to increase the cardiovascular output. So, for instance, if you prefer walking, you would inject 30 seconds of jogging after every 5 minutes of walking. The more intense the better the workout will be. As you gain endurance after several workouts, you can make the intervals longer and less spaced out.
2. Strength:
While some form of a cardio workout is obvious, strength training is a lot less obvious as being an effective type of workout to lose weight. Strength training is an effective way to lose weight because your muscles require constant feeding, and the larger they are the larger their metabolic needs are. So, the larger the proportion of muscle is in your body, the more calories you will burn throughout the day and during exercises.
Most people consider weight training to involve large weights and body-building exercises, but that certainly does not need to be the case. A series of the following exercises will help to target and train all of the major muscles groups in your body: pushups, crunches, bicep curls, squats, reverse dips, lunges, and rows.
Performing a series of those exercises in a way that allows you to perform each exercise at least once every week should take no longer than 30-40 minutes three times per week. Not only will these workouts help you burn fat and calories, but they will strengthen your muscles to allow you to continue burning more calories day and night. Also, as you get stronger you should aim to increase your work load to ensure that you are continuing to burn extra calories.
At the end of the day, there is no easy way to lose weight and there are no magic secrets. However, hard work, dedication, and remaining disciplined will help you reach your goals more easily and much quicker whether it’s dieting or exercising. So, while these might be the best workouts to help you lose weight, it is absolutely crucial that you maintain your motivation to lose weight so that you can make sure you stay on track to reach your ideal weight.