Are Exercise Bikes Good for Weight Loss?

Once you're ready to turn your dream of losing weight into reality, it's time to develop a fitness routine. People who enjoy a repetitive, solo workout can often find success by pedaling a stationary bike. This simple workout contributes to a rapid calorie burn to help you work toward your goal.

The recipe for losing weight is to burn more calories than you consume, notes Harvard Health Publishing. This process, which entails creating a calorie deficit, is often attainable when you increase the amount you exercise and decrease your caloric intake.

Regular workouts on the exercise bike can play a pivotal role in helping you reach a calorie deficit. If you're able to burn an excess of 500 calories per day, or 3,500 calories over the course of the week, you'll lose one pound of fat in a week.

The key to using an exercise bike to help you lose weight is to perform your calorie-burning workout frequently. Adults should get a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio exercise every week, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. If you're eager to lose weight quickly, a workout that includes at least 300 minutes of weekly cardio can speed up the weight-loss process.

Pedaling an exercise cycle is an efficient and low-impact way to burn calories. Shoot for cycling 30 minutes at a time on the stationary bike five days a week. A 155-pound person can burn 260 calories in 30 minutes of cycling, says Harvard Health Publishing . Walk, swim or play sports on the other two days to keep your fitness level up and to keep your weight-loss goal up front and center.

Read more: How to Ride an Exercise Bike

Visiting the gym five days a week and pedaling an exercise bike for 60 minutes per day can help you work toward creating a calorie deficit. If you're short on time, however, you don't necessarily have to abandon your plan of using the exercise bike. Instead, use the machine for interval training.

High-intensity interval training or HIIT can take several forms. With the exercise bike, an interval-training workout could involve doing 60-second sprints and alternating them with 60 seconds of moderate pedaling over the course of 20 minutes.

This type of workout is an effective way to elevate your metabolism to help you burn more calories, according to ACE Fitness. One of the other benefits of a HIIT workout — and the least talked about — is the boredom factor. Cycling in one spot for 30 minutes can get tedious. HIIT can spice a workout up.

Read more: HIIT for Beginners: 7 Tips to Jump-Start Your Workouts

Increasing the amount you exercise by frequently using an exercise bike is beneficial, but you're more likely to lose weight by combining exercise with modified diet. You can cut your caloric intake in a multitude of ways. A simple strategy is keeping healthy foods, such as vegetables and low-fat proteins, on hand to eat when you're tempted to snack on something unhealthy, for example.