How Much Should I Work Out To Lose Weight Without Dieting?

Many diets end in failure because people feel deprived when they restrict their caloric intake and food choices. A low-calorie diet may leave you feeling hungry and may even backfire by slowing your metabolism, leading to weight gain once you end the diet. Another way to lose weight is to focus on burning calories through exercise.

Calculating Your Caloric Deficit

Before beginning any weight loss plan, figure out just how many calories you need to burn to reach your goals. First, determine your daily caloric requirements by calculating your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. This is the amount of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight. The formula for women is: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years). The formula for men is 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years). Aim to lose 1 to 2 lb. a week for healthy and sustainable weight loss. To do this, you must burn 500 to 1,000 calories per day through exercise.

Cardio Workouts

Cardiovascular or aerobic exercise such as brisk walking, jogging, swimming and cycling are the best types of workouts for burning calories. The more intense exercises burn the most calories. Choose an exercise that you enjoy or find convenient, and aim to do it long enough that you will burn 500 calories. Many exercise machines and online sites can give you a good estimate of how many calories you are burning for a given exercise. The amount of calories you burn will depend on the intensity and length of your workout as well as your own weight. The heavier you are, the more calories you will burn.

Resistance Training Workouts

While resistance training or weight training workouts tend to burn fewer calories than cardio workouts, they are still important to weight loss. Resistance training builds muscle tissue, which is metabolically active. This means the more muscle you have, the more calories you are burning, even when you are at rest. Intense resistance training workouts also rev up your metabolism so that you are burning calories long after you have finished your workout. The President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition recommends strength training at least twice a week, although you may want to increase the amount of training you do to burn more calories and reach your goals faster.

Non-Scheduled Exercise

Burn calories by building unscheduled exercise into your daily routine. All movement burns calories, so walking to work, taking the stairs rather than the elevator and even carrying groceries will burn calories and increase your caloric deficit. Walking the dog, playing with your kids and gardening are also effective ways to burn calories without scheduling a formal workout.