When most people think of exercising to lose weight, running or jumping rope often come to mind. While these forms of aerobic exercise encourage your body to burn calories, the increased rate of caloric burn is often limited to the workout session. Rounding out an exercise regimen with a weightlifting routine can help provide an additional benefit by building muscle tissue that burns more calories than fat tissue.
Weight Control
Although fad diets and quick weight loss schemes make losing fat look easy, they seldom provide safe, suitable or lasting results. Weight loss occurs when the amount of calories you burn exceed the amount of calories you consume. Diet and exercise can provide the necessary calorie deficit that results in weight loss. Different forms of exercise burn varying amounts of calories.
Calories Burned
A pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories. To burn a pound of fat through exercise alone, you must burn this many calories. The specific time you require to lose weight depends on your size, type of exercise and level of intensity. One hour of weightlifting can cause a 160-pound person to burn 219 calories, the Mayo Clinic calculates, and a 240-pound person to burn 327 calories. At this rate, it takes the 160-pound individual about 16 hours to lose 1 pound and the 240-pound individual closer to 14 hours. Aerobic exercise burns calories quicker. For instance, a 160-pound person burns about 438 calories hiking and 584 calories playing tennis, cutting the weight-loss time almost in half.
Workout Sessions
The Mayo Clinic recommends lifting weights two or three times each week for 20 to 30 minutes during each session, while performing moderate aerobic activities for at least 250 minutes during the week to lose weight. Allow at least a day between lifting sessions to allow your muscles to rest and recover.
Considerations
Coupling a healthy, low-calorie diet with your exercise routine can speed up your weight loss. By eating about 500 fewer calories each day, you may lose an additional pound each week. Alternating weightlifting routines with aerobic workouts that burn more calories, such as bicycling, tennis, kickboxing and hiking, can also shorten the time it takes to lose excess fat. Consult your doctor before beginning any new exercise or diet program.
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