How Often You Should Work Out If You Want To Lose Weight
Adding a workout to your daily routine is highly beneficial for weight loss. Exercising will help you burn more calories to have a calorie deficit, which is necessary for weight loss. Healthy weight loss consists of a lifestyle change, not a fad diet. You've got to eat various healthy foods, cut out the junk, and exercise regularly. But how much exercise should you get if you want to lose weight?
According to Healthline, you need to be working out four to five times a week to lose weight, but you aren't going to start there. You'll work up to that amount of weekly workouts. Start with two to three exercises a week and slowly work your way up to five.
Make sure your workouts include cardio, strength training, core exercises, and stretching. Lifting weights will increase your muscle mass and strength, which will help you burn more calories all the time, even when you're sleeping. Cardio is essential for heart health, burning calories, decreasing stress, and boosting your mood.
How much cardio and strength training should you do to lose weight?
You have two options with cardio workouts. Aim for either 30 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio workouts five times a week, or 25 minutes of high-intensity cardio workouts three days a week. Moderate intensity could be walking, hiking, or biking casually, while high intensity could be HIIT workouts, jogging, skating, skiing, swimming, biking, running, or practicing any competitive sport (via Healthline and the CDC).
You'll need two to three days of strength training that include full-body workouts. Some exercises to include are lunges with lateral raises, squats with shoulder presses, deadlifts with bent-over rows, pushups and planks with one arm rows, straight-leg deadlifts, bench presses, pull-ups, pushups, crunches with an exercise ball, dumbbell rows, and overhead presses (via Healthline).
You can do these workouts at the gym or at home. If you want to do them at home, you'll need to invest in an app that can provide you with some strength training and cardio workouts. You'll also need a set of dumbbells, a medicine ball, and a mat. You could buy a treadmill or workout bike if you prefer to do your cardio indoors, or you could walk, bike, or jog outside.
Losing weight is not easy, and it takes a commitment to a complete lifestyle change, but you can do it. You should see no more than one to two pounds come off each week, according to the Mayo Clinic. Take two days off weekly to allow your body time to rest and repair.