What are some good exercise to do when your trying to lose weight?

Question

I'm trying to lose weight, and I was wondering what are some good exercises I could do to help out?

Answer 1

Don't target more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. You can easily find a list of calories for various exercises by doing a Google search on something like "swimming calories." You can the lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you exercise them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

My ideas? Try to do 200 minutes of cardio a week. Remember fat does not turn into muscle, so you need to lose your fat while putting on muscle. Work hard, but don't over 60 minutes at a time. Do planks and other abs exercises on alternate days.

On training days, do 5-10 minutes of cardio to warm up, then do your weight training. Do 30 to 60 minutes more of cardio, then go home.

The best time to eat is just after your workout within an hour when your metabolism is raging. For your muscles, incorporate some isolated soy protein or whey protein. Whey is more potent but the soy tastes better!

Don't look at your scale as the be all and end all, but get a measuring tape to check your progress, and that will show more tangible results.

Read magazines like Shape, Womens Fitness, Fitness, etc to get tips and to stay motivated.

Good luck and stick at it. This plan has lost me 20 lbs in 12 weeks so far, just go for it!

Answer 3

Perfect weight Long distance runner as little as 125 pounds Competetive bodybuilder up to 200 pounds Fitness and average size around 140 to 150 would be good. I just started out at the gym yesterday I do a 10 minute warmup at 3.7 mph on the treadmill 1 set 15 reps bench press bent over row shrugs standing press curl tricep extension squat calf raise Nautilus crunch machine 3 days a week walk/run 5 or 6 miles 3 times a week on the days that I do not weight train. and one day of rest.

Answer 4

Walking! It is an excellent exercise. I actually discovered it by accident one day when things were so chaotic at my house - I simply walked out & continued around my neighborhood. I loved it because it helps clear your mind, is a great escape, & tones your whole body verses using a different machine for each body part. After I got use to walking, I started running to make it more aerobic.
-It's been 3 weeks since I've started walking/running 1 mile 4 days a week & I've already lost 15 pounds! The best part is that it's FREE - no expensive machines or gym memberships [trust me - I've tried it all].
I recommend stretching before & after to prevent muscle tear & soreness. MAKE SURE if you aren't use to exercising that you START OUT with walking then work your way up to running [I also tried running after no exercise for 6 months & all it did was make me feel like I was going to die lol] - I hope my 'answer' helps. Good Luck!
-Carrie

Answer 5

loosing weight is a big thing... it wouldnt happen atonce...
1. you can go walking for atleast one hour daily...
2.stop eating oily foods...
3.stop eating food at odd times...
4.eat at de correct time...
if u wanna reduce weight soon u could try eatin salads.. but eating salads would reduce but its not healthy...
Do not lower calorie intake below 1500 per day
Eat a little high quality protein at most meals
Get plenty of sleep
Try to rest a day between hard workouts.
If new to exercising try to train every other day rather than two consecutive days in a row
and u could try these sites:

Answer 6

Walking, running, or any kind of aerobic activity that gets your heart rate up for at least 30 minutes. Also, some kind of strength training 2 0r 3 times a week to build lean muscle mass. Find something you like to do so you will be more likely to stick with it.

Answer 7

STEP 1: Realize that you can not spot reduce fat. It
burns systematically.

STEP 2: Properly recognize and identify your goal,
then break it down into small parts.

STEP 3: Use common sense and expect fat loss not just
weight loss.

STEP 4: Weight train regularly to avoid exercise
suicide (losing muscle).

STEP 5: Incorporate fat into your diet and never
remove fat totally from your eating plan.

STEP 6: Write down 3 days of food intake to discover
your caloric maintenance level.

STEP 7: Follow the RDA to create the proper eating
plan and food variety.

STEP 8: Never eliminate carbohydrates from your eating
plan!

STEP 9: Calorie reduction is the initial physiological
step to trigger fat loss.

STEP 10: Do calorie burning activities and eat
frequent meals to enhance fat burning.

hope this helps...i lost 2 stone in 3 months...also reduce alcohol input if your a drinker and just eat healthy...drink lots of water..eat 3 healthy meals a day...and have 5 pieces of fruit per day..you'll soon see the difference...be kind to your body...dont over excercise...

Answer 8

Bike ride my friend and swim,watch what you eat,Don,t eat pass 7:30 at night,and walking is real good for losing weight and even dancing,Just because you have to lose weight,doesn,t mean you can,t have fun doing it!Good Luck!Hollywood!

Answer 9

Cardiovascular. Run, walk, swim, bike, jump rope, lift weights, anything that will increase your heart rate and boost your metabolism. Also, watch your diet, eat 5-6 healthy meals a day not to exceed 1500-1800 calories per day.

Answer 10

the BEST thing to do when trying to lose weight (and without putting too much strain on you joints) is SWIMMING!

Swimming tones your muscles AND burns fat at the same time!
After your swim, you should go sit in the sauna/steam room for 10-20 minutes aswell!

(i say sauna/steam room, because i am assuming you will be swimming at your local gym!?)