Burn more calories with these effective workouts.
You need calories to survive. But there’s a fine line when it comes to how many you need. Eat too few and body functions start shutting down. Eat too many and the weight that piles on leads to numerous health problems. Eat the right amount of the right kind of calories each day and you can expect health—good, good health.
What exactly is a calorie? It’s the energy found in foods and drinks. When you consume more calories than you burn, your body stores them as fat. How do you burn calories and fat stores? You burn calories by just sitting there, by digesting food, and by breathing. However, if you want to really watch those calories burn, you’ll need to commit yourself to physical activity.
For every 3,500 calories you burn, you can expect to lose approximately one pound of weight. Just how much exercise does it take to burn that many calories? For a 150-pound person, the calorie burn estimates for various activities are listed below. Keep in mind the amount of calories a person burns is based on their weight, sex, height, and current fitness level.
Running
Many people choose running as their go-to exercise and for good reason. Run at a six mile-per-hour pace and you can expect to burn almost 700 calories in an hour. If that pace is too fast, slow down to a jog and burn about 500 calories in an hour.
Add interval training (alternating high-intensity exercise with moderate-intensity exercise) to your running or jogging workouts and burn even more calories.
Cycling
If running’s not your thing, there are plenty of other options to torch those calories. Spending an hour pedaling a stationary bike while watching television will burn 500 calories, depending on your speed and resistance. Increase the intensity, take a spin class, or going mountain biking and burn even more.
Jumping Rope
You can probably remember jumping rope on the playground when you were young. Back then you didn’t care about calories, but now you do. It may be time to get the old jump rope out of the garage and start jumping. It won’t be easy, but an hour of jumping rope can burn almost 700 calories! Not bad for something that’s so fun!
Rowing
One of the best full-body, calorie-torching workouts is rowing. Yes, you’re sitting down, but you still use your upper and lower body muscles to row a boat or canoe. By vigorously rowing for an hour you can expect to burn almost 600 calories. You can also expect sore muscles the next day if you’re not in shape.
Rollerblading
Also called in-line skating, rollerblading is a fun and effective exercise. Head to the roller rink or a local paved trail and roll away for a great workout that burns nearly 500 calories in an hour.
Swimming
Easy on the joints but tough on fat, swimming is another great full-body exercise. A moderate-paced breaststroke for an hour will burn more than 600 calories.
Zumba
Combine your love of music, dance, and weight loss with Zumba Fitness. These cardio-dance workouts are incredibly fun, and they bring results as well. An hour of Zumba will go by in no time, while burning an impressive 500 calories—so what are you waiting for?
Results
Have an hour a day to dedicate to your good health? Spend it doing one of the exercises listed above and you’ll burn 3,500 or more calories in a week, resulting in a pound off your waistline. Not sure which exercise is best for weight loss? Whichever one you’ll do every day. And in 20 weeks, you’ll weigh 20 pounds fewer than you do right now!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.