Getting your diet in check is a great way to start shedding some pounds, but exercising is equally important if you want to maximize the results. Exercise burns calories and in turn fat and you also get numerous health and mental benefits.
Here are the five best exercises to lose that stubborn fat quickly and efficiently:
Walking
If you are not a fan of exercising or you are just beginning your workout journey, walking is the ideal place to start.
Walking is easy to do, you can do it literally anywhere, and it’s super convenient. You can walk in the park, along the beach, or on a treadmill at the gym. Walking is also very low-impact, so there will be little stress on your joints and tendons.
In a three-month study of twenty obese women, they concluded that an hour of walking three times a week reduced body fat by 1.5%. Of course, the amount you lose will depend on your current weight.
You should start with 30-minute walks every other day, and increase the frequency as you get more fit.
Jogging
Jogging should be your next step up from walking. While walking is a great start, jogging has higher impact on weight loss.
Jogging is similar to running but the paces are different. The average jogging speed is around 5 mph, and running is when your pace goes over 6 mph.
Once you get comfortable jogging, you can increase the pace and start running for more intensive weight loss. Both jogging and running can help in burning belly fat, which is correlated to heart disease and diabetes.
You should start with 20 minutes of jogging a week, and increase the volume from there.
Swimming
Swimming will not only help you lose weight, but also get your entire body in shape. It’s also very low impact and very easy on your joints, meaning that its’ great if you have an injury or joint pain.
You will lose more than 200 calories an hour while swimming, though the way you swim will influence the number of calories you’ll actually burn. If you do the backstroke for thirty minutes you will burn about 300 calories. Using the butterfly technique, you will burn about 100 calories more.
Strength Training
Strength training is probably the most effective way of burning those extra calories, and it also stimulates muscle and strength growth.
Increased muscle size will raise your resting metabolic rate that will in turn burn fat long after you finish a workout. You can burn more than 100 calories a day by doing 10 minutes of strength training, three times a week.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
If you want to burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, HIIT exercises are the way to go.
HIIT is a form of exercise where you do 30 seconds of intense workout followed by one to two minutes of a lighter workout. The workout should typically last between ten and thirty minutes, and it burns up to 30% more calories than other types of exercises.
HIIT exercises are also extremely effective at shedding belly fat.
Pick Your Exercise
Even though some exercises are better than others when it comes to weight loss, they can also be a lot more difficult. You should pick the exercises that you can stick to in the long run because weight loss is a process, not a destination.
