If you want to lose weight quickly through exercise alone, you need to be willing to commit some serious time and intention to your workouts. Vigorous exercises will burn the most calories and lead to the fastest weight loss, so if you're in shape, start there. If not, work up to challenging movements with interval training and other effective calorie-burning techniques. Finally, for the best results, reduce your daily calories to accelerate weight loss progress.
Calorie Burn
At the heart of weight loss is the matter of calories burned versus calories consumed. If you can consistently burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight, no matter how gradually. To speed up that process, you'll need to take in far fewer calories, burn many more or do a combination of both.
Exercises
You'll need to go beyond brisk walking and other moderate exercises to achieve quick weight loss. Some of the more demanding workout choices are running, kickboxing and rollerblading. According to MayoClinic.com, a 160-lb. person who works out for an hour will burn about 1,000, 730 and 915 calories with each of those activities, respectively. So if you weigh that much and keep up one of those exercises for an hour every day, you will lose between 1.5 lbs. and 2 lbs. per week.
Plyometrics
Plyometric exercises are another intense workout choice that combines aerobics and efficient calorie burning with challenging strength training. Plyometrics uses your body weight for resistance and involves "loading" muscles like a spring and then relying on the contractions for quick bursts of energy and rapid movements. According to Washington State University, plyometrics "allows a muscle to reach maximal force in the shortest possible time." Examples of plyometric exercises include plank jacks, clapping pushups, jumping lunges and lateral jumps.
Interval Training
Not everyone is able to keep up intense exercises for extended periods of time. If you're not used to being active and your body needs to adjust to more demanding movements, one method you can use is interval training. Interval training involves alternating times of vigorous, challenging activity with periods of moderate activity. For example, you might jog for 60 seconds, sprint for 15 seconds and then repeat that cycle. According to MayoClinic.com, interval training boosts aerobic capacity and burns more calories than normal workouts for faster weight loss.
Considerations
Always see your doctor before beginning a new weight loss or exercise program, especially if you have a chronic health condition, are obese or are not used to exercising regularly. Intense exercises bring about quick results, but they also carry risks if they're not done correctly. Before attempting a new move, watch a demonstration by a fitness professional or personal trainer and, if possible, have her evaluate your technique.
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