There are, most assuredly, more detailed articles on the topic of how to exercise to lose weight. But, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making things easy to understand by breaking them down to their simplest points. That’s probably why I am a teacher. So, here goes exercise and weight loss.
First, if you want to exercise to lose weight, it’s important to understand this basic point: To lose weight, you must use (burn) more calories than you consume (eat). The whole point of exercising for weight loss is to help you burn more of those calories.
Second, your body doesn’t care how you burn those calories. As long as you burn the calories, you’ll get the same result. The specific muscles that did the work don’t decide where the fat comes from. Meaning, abdominal exercises don’t burn calories from your abs. So, the body part and associated muscles don’t matter, except…[hmtad name=”In Content” align=”left”]
Third, larger muscles use more energy than smaller muscles so you will burn more calories when you use larger muscles and do exercises using a lot of muscle than when you isolate muscles. Therefore, squats burn more calories (and belly fat) than crunches do.
Also, low intensity, aerobic exercises burn more fat while you’re doing them, but high energy, anaerobic exercises burn more calories between workouts because they elevate your metabolism more than aerobic exercises. So, make sure you do both.
Lastly, exercising every day leads to more weight loss than exercising every other day, even if those workouts are longer. So, daily short workouts are better than irregular, longer workouts. And yes, daily, long workouts are even better. Don’t over-do it; one hour is sufficient for anyone.
With all this being said, don’t let anyone tell you that they have the newest, best program to lose more weight. There’s no magic pill. It’s a simple formula where you just need to find which exercises you enjoy most so you can have that burning side of the equation be higher than the consuming side.