Exercise helps you burn calories, which helps you lose weight. The amount of exercise you would need to do to lose weight extremely fast depends on factors such as how much you weigh and how many calories you eat. However, you may fail to keep the weight off if you set your expectations too high.
A Word of Caution
Extremely fast weight loss comes as a result of extreme changes in exercise and diet. Often, such dramatic lifestyle changes are impossible to sustain for longer than a few weeks, and you are likely to gain back all the weight once you throw in the towel. Additionally, measures such as avoiding all carbohydrates or exercising with liquid calories as your only fuel could cause you to lose too much muscle or water weight. Although you boost your chances of weight loss success by combining your exercise regimen with a low-calorie diet, you should never eat less than about 1,200 to 1,500 calories and never attempt to burn off more than 1,000 excess calories per day without a doctor's recommendation.
Aerobic Exercise
All adults should participate in 150 or more minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity to prevent weight gain, but you may need 250 or more minutes of aerobic exercise every week if you are trying to lose weight, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Broken down, you could do about 50 minutes of exercise five days per week as long as each session lasts 10 minutes or more. Begin at a slow and steady pace by walking around the block at home and taking a stroll around the office building at lunch breaks. As you develop stamina, build up the challenge by increasing the incline or picking up the pace.
Interval Training
You burn calories at a faster pace when you do high-intensity exercises, such as running and high-impact aerobics. However, most people can last longer with moderate-intensity exercise and are thus able to burn more calories over a slower-paced, more drawn out exercise session. Do interval training to get the best of both worlds. Interval training, which is alternating between bursts of high and low intensity activity in the same session, prevents you from getting bored and helps you boost more calories without burning out quickly. An example of interval training during a walk would be to alternate between walking for a few minutes and jogging for a few minutes. Other easy ways to incorporate interval training include alternating between slow and fast songs on your mp3 player and moving with the pace or jogging one block every time you see a blue mailbox.
Weight Training
Do muscle-strengthening exercises, such as pushups, two to three times per week in sessions of at least 20 to 30 minutes. Having more muscle helps your body burn calories at a more efficient pace from day to day. Do at least eight to 10 different exercises to target different muscle groups and do at least one set of 12 to 15 repetitions for each exercise.
References
- MayoClinic.com: Fast Weight Loss: What's Wrong with It?
- MayoClinic.com: Interval Training: Can it Boost Your Calorie-Burning Power?
- MayoClinic.com: Exercise for Weight Loss: Calories Burned in One Hour
- American College of Sports Medicine: ACSM Position Stand on Physical Activity and Weight Loss
- MedlinePlus: Exercise and Weight Loss
- MayoClinic.com: Strength Training: Get Stronger, Leaner, Healthier
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