Best exercise to lose weight
There are many fantastic exercises that one can choose from to aid their weight loss endeavours, and they're all good – if you're keeping active, you're positively impacting your health, but only one can be the best exercise for weight loss – the greatest of all time!
In this article, I will cover the five best exercises to lose weight and belly fat, and give my opinion on which one is the best!
Walking
Walking is a fantastic exercise – it could well be the best exercise for weight loss, but you'll have to keep reading to find out if it holds that title. When your goal is fat loss, you want to move around as much as possible and walking is a low-impact, low-stress way to do this. When people look to lose weight, they rightfully reduce the amount of food they eat, but when there's less energy coming in, your body will try and preserve it. One way it does this is by reducing your NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) – this is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or planned exercise. Keeping active with regular movement such as walking will ensure you're keeping on top of the calories out part of the fat loss equation and not subconsciously compensating by moving less.
Resistance training
Resistance Training involves engaging a muscle or group of muscles to elicit muscle growth, improve strength and muscular endurance, and aid in fat loss. Most of my clients have weight loss goals, and they all have resistance training programmes to aid in this endeavour. Resistance training has been shown to reduce body fat in countless studies. During a resistance training session, we'll burn a fair amount of calories, but the real magic happens when the session ends – it requires energy to build and repair the muscles from the pounding you've just bestowed upon them. Following this, even more magic happens as your body now needs to fuel this newly founded muscle mass – this results in you burning more calories throughout the day.
Jogging or running
I love running – if this were a list of my favourite exercises, running would be number one! I love getting out in the fresh air and getting the miles in! There are few better feelings than conquering a steep hill while listening to Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty – if you know, you know. And not only does running make you feel good, but it's also a great exercise to help you lose weight, as your body requires a fair amount of calories to move you up and down those hills while you're shuffling through your Rocky playlist. Your body will fuel these runs from the food you eat and energy reserves, such as body fat. If you control your calories and do plenty of running, it won't be too difficult to tilt energy balance in your favour and induce fat loss.
Cycling
Cycling is a fantastic exercise to help you get fit, shred that unwanted belly fat and even build a decent amount of muscle tissue – have you seen cyclists' legs? They're jacked! You can opt for doing it outdoors and enjoy exploring your local area or indoors and get a great workout from the comfort of your home. Indoor bikes have come a long way over the past decade and now allow you to do live online classes. Unlike running, there is very little stress on the joints when cycling, which is great for a couple of reasons; it's unlikely to damage your joints, and because the muscles are taking the brunt of the stress, not your joints, it does allow you to build some impressive legs!
Swimming
Swimming could be the most relaxing exercise on this list – assuming you can swim! Swimming ticks many boxes; it's a full-body workout with low stress and low impact, and, of course, it's a great way to burn calories and lose weight – a strong contender to win the best exercise to lose weight title! If you can swim, and have a swimming pool near you, then this is a no-brainer – whack on those Speedo's and do some lengths. Your body will love it and thank you with increased fitness levels, mobility and a well-developed physique!
What is the best exercise to lose weight?
Only one exercise can triumph, and the best exercise to lose weight is walking! All exercise can help you lose fat, as when we move more, we burn more calories – it tilts energy balance in our favour and results in us burning body fat as an energy source. But no exercise is as convenient as walking. Now, if you're thinking that you can burn more calories running as well as better develop your aerobic capacity, lactate threshold and all that good stuff, you'd be right. But, practically speaking, you can only go for one run a day. But you can walk all day, or at least, little hits of walking throughout the day. When you have a break from work, walk around. When it's the weekend go for walks – the kids will love it! It's the accumulative effectiveness of walking that makes it so awesome. If you focus on being active and moving around as much as possible, you'll burn more calories than you would if you just focused on cashing in a single short session.
Best exercise to lose belly fat?
I thought it would be worth answering this question as well, as people often think that there are different strategies that one would implement to target the fat around the midsection specifically, prehaps crunches or sit-ups will target the fat around that area? In reality, doing ab exercises won't shed the fat around the stomach but rather develop the muscles underneath the fat. This is still important, but if you want to lose belly fat, you need to reduce your calories and increase your energy expenditure. As mentioned, the easiest way to increase your energy expenditure is walking. So, the best exercise to lose belly fat is walking!
Parting shot
Even though walking is the best exercise to lose weight and belly fat, that doesn't mean you should ignore all the other exercises on this list. Cash in a good couple of runs – you'll enjoy them and pump some iron in the gym – when you shed that body fat, you want to reveal a toned athletic physique, and it's building muscle via resistance training which will do this. If you have extra time, get cycling and swimming as well – it's all good!
Remember that to lose weight – you need to create a caloric deficit – you need to burn more calories than you consume. So don't just focus on your activity levels – also focus on your calories. If you want to know how many calories you should eat per day, please check out this article or my free online calorie calculator.
Control your intake, keep active and enjoy the journey!