What exercises are best for losing weight?

Losing weight is a goal many people pursue and often find it hard to achieve noticeable results, sometimes due to lack of consistency and other times, for not doing the right exercises. Therefore, it is very easy to get discouraged after three or four weeks of exercising and end up abandoning weight loss exercises due to lack of motivation. 

Likewise, it is true that exercise alone is not an effective method to lose weight if it is not accompanied by healthy lifestyle habits. For example, spending many hours sitting or maintaining a hypercaloric or sugar-rich diet is not very helpful even if you exercise, both at the gym and at home. 

But, it is also true that many people who want to lose weight, due to lack of knowledge on the subject, end up doing exercises that are not specifically useful for this goal. In fact, some hypertrophy exercises, which help develop and thicken muscles, can make your body "bulk up" visually during the first few months. Therefore, it is advisable to focus correctly on certain exercises to lose weight.

Exercises to lose weight

As we have mentioned before, hypertrophy exercises are used to develop muscle mass. We refer to lifting exercises weights and dumbbells, abs, squats, rowing, press incline or barbell bench press, etc. These can help us lose weight in the long term by burning fat thanks to strength training, as they help speed up metabolism. 

We consider these exercises essential if we want to be fit, improve our physical condition, and lose weight. However, the best is to combine them with other cardio exercises that help you burn a lot of calories in a short time. Many of them can also help you strengthen your muscles and build endurance for hypertrophy training. 

Walking 

Although it may seem strange that walking is an effective exercise for weight loss, the truth is it is a very good way to burn calories. In fact, if you go at a good pace, it can be very effective, since you can burn up to 300 calories per hour. However, it is useless to go at a very slow pace or take constant breaks, as calorie burning will stop quickly. 

The best is to walk at a brisk pace to increase heart rate and keep burning many calories. The main advantage of this exercise is that, unlike running, it is a low-impact exercise which helps strengthen bones and muscles. Also, it can be done perfectly in company or while listening to music, so it is hard to get bored and lose motivation. 

Using the bike

The bike is a good means of transportation, especially if you live in areas with a network of bike lanes in good condition. This way, by pedaling, you can burn a lot of calories, strengthen the muscles of the legs, glutes, and back and, of course, lose weight quickly. 

In fact, using the bike, you can burn more than 500 calories per hour if you go at a good pace. This exercise also has the indoor option, using the stationary bike at the gym or at home. Therefore, we should also add it to our list of exercises to lose weight at home. 

The elliptical

Although many people tend to underestimate elliptical bikes, the truth is they help burn a lot of calories thanks to the aerobic exercise it provides. Also, it represents an alternative to low impact with which you can increase your endurance with a cardio workout that also strengthens the thighs and glutes. 

Additionally, you can work out the upper body, thanks to the handles it includes, to do strength exercises and strengthen the arms. In this way, you can burn an even greater amount of calories. In fact, by doing a complete arm and leg workout with the elliptical at high intensity, we can burn more than 800 calories in an hour. Therefore, it is one of the best exercises for weight loss. 

Jumping rope

Jumping rope is a very effective weight loss exercise because it is high impact and allows you to burn many calories in a short time. Therefore, by jumping rope you can say goodbye to those extra pounds while strengthening your legs, heart, and bone density. For this reason, it is a type of exercise incorporated into boxing training to keep weight under control, since allows you to burn more than 600 calories in just one hour. 

HIIT training

It is a type of high-intensity training which includes many exercises to lose weight quickly while strengthening muscles. It helps burn many calories and accelerate metabolism to burn body fat rapidly. 

It is performed with short sessions between 10 and 20 minutes, although there are sessions lasting up to 60 minutes. It also consists of different periods of high-intensity and power exercise combined with high speed. These alternate with periods of low-intensity active rest or recovery. 

A HIIT training routine includes various exercises commonly used for weight loss. Among these exercises, we can find sit-ups, burpees, jumping jacks, crunch, jumps, push-ups, squats or skipping (running in place), among many others. That is, it is a type of training that allows burning more than 500 calories in one hour while also allowing you to increase muscle mass and endurance of our body. 

Jumping jacks

As we mentioned in the HIIT training section, the jumping jacks are a type of weight loss exercises commonly used in many routines. This is because, besides being capable of burning up to 600 calories in one hour thanks to its high intensity, allows you to work the glutes, legs, arms, and abdomen. Therefore, besides losing weight, you can increase your endurance and muscle mass. 

Crossfit training

It is a very intense training that requires a high cardiorespiratory capacity, so it is usually not recommended for beginners. However, it is perhaps one of the best ways to burn many calories while working your muscle mass and body endurance. 

This type of training is based, like HIIT, on a combination of different types of exercises to lose weight in a very intense circuit with very short rests. This allows you to speed up metabolism and lose weight quickly. In fact, with Crossfit training, up to 700 calories can be burned per hour during exercise.