The Best Ways to Exercise & Lose Weight Quickly

Cardiovascular exercise can help people lose weight more quickly.inifinity health and condition concept with running woman image by .shock from Fotolia.com

Exercise is essential for those who wish to get into shape and lose weight. Exercise has many positive benefits such as increased energy, better stamina and reduced body fat. Those who wish to lose weight more quickly should incorporate cardiovascular exercise into their daily fitness routine. Cardiovascular exercise is good for the heart, burns calories and increases the metabolism. Combining exercise with a healthy, reduced calorie diet is the best way to lose weight and keep it off.

Steady State Cardio

Cardiovascular exercise performed at the same intensity for the entire duration of the workout, is known as steady state cardio. Steady state cardiovascular exercise is usually performed for 20 to 45 minutes each workout session. Most people wishing to lose weight add steady state cardio into their fitness routine three to four times a week. Exercisers should try to keep their heart rate around 60 to 80 percent of maximal for the duration of the workout. Steady state cardiovascular exercise is often performed on a treadmill, bicycle or elliptical machine. Whole body exercise such as swimming or running are effective as well.

High intensity interval training is also known as HIIT. Exercise performed in this manner is quite effective in quickly reducing body weight. HIIT is performed by alternating high intensity activity with short periods of lower intensity activities for a duration of 15 to 20 minutes. A typical HIIT routine would alternate exercise performed for 45 to 60 seconds at maximum effort with exercise performed at a lower intensity for 60 to 90 seconds. HIIT can boost metabolism and help the body to burn calories even after the workout is finished.

Strength training is an effective way to burn calories, increase metabolism and develop more lean muscle mass. Weight training is the most common form of strength training and when performed at least three times a week in combination with cardiovascular exercise, it can help lower body weight. Adding lean muscle mass with weight training is an important aspect of keeping body weight lower for the long term, because more muscle means more calories are being burned throughout the day, even when the body is at rest.

Cross training is exercise performed while alternating types of cardiovascular exercise equipment or activities within the same workout session. Cross training may include 15 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes running outside and 15 minutes of swimming. Another cross training workout schedule could include 10 minutes of the elliptical, 10 minutes on the stair stepper and 10 minutes walking on a treadmill. Cross training is great for those who get bored with the same workout routine and keeps the body from adapting too quickly to any workout routine.