This best types of exercise for weight loss guide will help you choose the exercises that best suit your weight loss goals, preferences and the body composition you want to achieve.
However, nutrition and being in a calorie deficit will play a critical role in determining whether or not the best types of exercise for weight loss will work for you. You can do all the exercise you want. Still, if you're not eating well and consuming too many calories, more than your body is burning, you'll find it hard to lose weight.
Suppose your goal is to lose body fat and maintain muscle, or you want to attain a lean, athletic-looking physique. In that case, you'll want to include resistance training in your exercise routine.
Based on my personal experience and observations over the last 30 years, combining resistance exercise, cardio, and NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) will lead to the most impressive and sustainable body transformation.
Ok, with that all said, let's look at some of the best types of exercise for weight loss.
Keep your muscle and lean body mass and fuel your metabolism.
Ideally, you want exercises geared towards retaining or building muscle and lean body mass while losing body fat, especially as you get older.
Muscle helps you walk, run, pick things up, wash yourself, getting up from bed and off the ground. And help you maintain a lean body and live a long healthy, functional life.
However, the most significant advantage of muscle is that it helps increase your basal metabolic rate. Therefore, adding resistance training exercises to your exercise routine will help strengthen and maintain your muscle and lean body mass.
Muscle is a metabolically active tissue that requires constant energy to perform all its cellular processes, burning more calories than fat tissue.
In other words, the more muscle you have, the higher your resting energy expenditure (REE). REE represents the number of calories used by the body during rest.
So to burn fat, you need muscle to act as your furnace. Therefore, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn, even when resting.
Suppose you choose not to do any resistance training. In that case, there is an increased chance of losing weight, which is more muscle and lean body weight rather than body fat. However, this is not an ideal way to lose weight because the more muscle you lose, the more your metabolism will drop and slow down. This makes long-term weight loss and weight maintenance more difficult.
Some of the best resistance exercises for weight loss are compound exercises such as the squat, deadlift, bench press and pull-ups. Compound exercises are multi-joint exercises that work multiple muscle groups at one time. These exercises are more physically demanding and, as a result, will help you burn a few more calories.
I'm also a big fan of supersets. As a result, most of my workouts involve supersets.
A superset is when you perform two exercises, one after the other. So, for example, you might do a set of squats followed by a set of push-ups with little to no rest between exercises.
An effective and time-efficient way to train is to group opposing exercises into supersets. For example, on my upper body workout days, I'll do a back exercise, such as a pull-up, followed by a chest exercise, such as a bench press.
Click to view an article by Precision Nutrition for more information on why muscle mass matters, especially during weight loss and which is better for fat loss, Cardio vs. Weights
Here is another article by Precision Nutrition on how to keep your muscle mass and fuel your metabolism, especially as you get older.
Intense exercise, how to do it and why you should
Burn more calories and increase your fat loss potential.
Cardio, short for Cardiovascular exercises, includes walking, running, swimming, cycling, jump rope (skipping), rowing, boxing and stair climbing.
Including cardio while in a calorie deficit will help you burn more calories, increasing your overall body fat loss potential. That's because cardio is fueled primarily by stored body fat.
The two best forms of cardio for burning body fat are high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and low-intensity steady-state cardio (LISS). Each has its pros and cons.
HIIT
HIIT is where you alternate between short bursts of intense, almost all-out effort, followed by longer periods of less intense steady-state.
For example, using a stationary bike, warm up for 5 minutes, then perform 10 - 30 seconds of almost maximum effort followed by 60 seconds of slow steady-state. Repeat for 5 to 10 intervals.
You can increase both the intensity and steady-state periods as you get fitter.
HIIT workouts can be done on exercise equipment such as a stationary bike, treadmill or rower. They can also be done at home or in the park by using a jump rope or combining sprinting with walking.
Start by including one HIIT workout once a week until you get used to high-intensity exercise, and then build up to two per week if needed.
Pros
Cons
LISS
LISS is where you perform cardio at a constant steady pace for a set period of time without any bursts of intense maximum effort.
A good low-intensity steady-state cardio exercise is walking.
What intensity should my constant steady pace be, and for how long?
A good indication is walking fast enough that you can carry on a conversation without running out of breath. Aim for 15 to 60 minutes of continuous cardio in a session 3 to 5 times per week.
Pros
Cons
I think the best recommendation is to pick a form of cardio that you enjoy, fits in with your lifestyle, and can adhere to long term.
If your goal is weight loss, it would be best to focus on a combination of HIIT and LISS. For example, perform HIIT 1 to 2 sessions per week on cardio equipment such as a stationary bike, treadmill, rower or elliptical cross-trainer. This is because cardio equipment tends to be a lower impact on the body. And 3 to 5 sessions per week of LISS, such as a brisk outside walk.
I enjoy doing HIIT on my mountain bike, where I'll ride up a hill at a fast pace and then at a slower, steady pace on the flat. On rare occasions, I'll go to the park and do a combination of sprints and walking intervals like I used to do during my years as a competitive sprinter. Still, these days, I prefer the bike as its low impact on the body.
I also enjoy walking around my city at a brisk pace on most days.
Click to view an article by Precision Nutrition for more information on the importance of cardio.
Here is another article by Precision Nutrition with a more in-depth explanation of cardiovascular exercise and how to incorporate it appropriately within your exercise routine or program.
Save time, build muscle and burn calories in the same workout.
Suppose you want a more time-efficient and effective workout method. Some of the best exercises for weight loss are a series of exercises done in a circuit that works the whole body in one workout.
Circuit training is a method of training where you go from exercise to exercise with little to no rest. It allows you to build strength and fitness and burn calories simultaneously.
Circuit training can be a series of cardio or resistance exercises or a combination of resistance and cardio exercises done one after the other. You can also alternate between a resistance exercise and a cardio exercise.
I would choose between 3 and 10 exercises per circuit.
Here is an example of a full-body circuit training workout routine that can be done at home with minimal equipment.
Perform 5 to 10 repetitions of each exercise with little to no rest between exercises. Once the circuit is complete, rest until you regain your breath and repeat. Perform 2 to 5 rounds.
Burn calories and lose fat by doing everyday activities.
I included NEAT in this guide because of the importance of constantly moving, which can make a big difference in your weight management.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is the energy used by simply doing your daily activities that aren't formal exercises like cardio, resistance training, or sleep.
Why is NEAT important for weight loss?
Well, it counts as a significant amount of the total calories you burn daily - your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). So the more active you are throughout the day, the more calories you can burn.
Daily NEAT activities include cooking, playing with the kids, walking the dog, washing the car, gardening, using a standing desk at work, fidgeting, shopping, or anything that gets you moving about.
A great way of increasing your NEAT is to increase your daily step count. A good goal to aim for is 10,000 steps a day. My wearable tells me that I burn 300 to 400 calories for every 10,000 steps I do.