Cycling to Lose Weight Fast

Cycling to Lose Weight Fast
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Cycling engages a variety of muscles in your body, helping you to burn calories and shed unwanted pounds quickly. In addition, regular cardiovascular exercise such as cycling boosts your metabolism for up to 12 hours following your workout, helping to lose even more weight. Whether you chose to ride on a stationary bike or a regular bicycle outdoors, cycling can help you reach your weight loss goals.

Benefits

Cycling can help you shed extra weight and fat fast by burning calories and boosting your metabolic rate. It is low-impact and comfortable, making it an easy and safe exercise to do without risking over-exerting or straining your bones, muscles and ligaments. Bicycling also helps to improve your stamina, strength and fitness level. This means that it will be easier for you to be more physically active and lose weight throughout the entire day.

Methods

To lose weight quickly while cycling, the book "Fitness For Dummies" recommends riding a stationary bike or real bicycle at 12 mph for about an hour five days a week. This will burn approximately 566 calories in one workout. To boost the intensity and amount of calories burned, ride on hilly terrain and vary the speed throughout your ride. Consider standing up and accelerating your speed for about 30 seconds every 15 or 20 minutes.

Tips

Ride your bicycle for 30 to 60 minutes before you eat breakfast to help you burn more calories and fat. Make sure that you eat a variety of carbohydrate-rich foods every day to help to fuel your bicycle ride and keep your muscles supplied with glycogen, which is need for weight loss. Consider adding weights to your workout to increase muscle tone and boost your metabolism.

Considerations

To avoid injury while cycling, which can prevent you from shedding weight quickly, warm up prior to your workout. This will raise the temperature of your muscles, making them more flexible and resistant to injuries such as sprains and strains. In addition, cool down by reducing your riding speed for five minutes or walking and stretching to remove lactic acid from your blood and muscles, which can help reduce soreness.

References

Article reviewed by John Hagemann Last updated on: Feb 24, 2011

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