5 Best Exercises For Weight Loss in 2023 | Exercise Plan Included | According to Experts

Do you know how many crunches you need to perform to burn 100 calories? You need to perform around 400 crunches (one crunch equals 0.25 calories).

So, if you are trying to lose a pound using crunches, you need to perform at least 14000 crunches (1 pound = 3500 calories, 0.25 calories per crunch).

This is why the exercises you perform to get in shape or lose weight matter. Since if you are doing the wrong ones, your hard work will most likely produce no results.

However, by doing the right exercise, you can lose a couple of pounds in a week.

In this article, you will find 5 exercises you can perform to lose weight swiftly, a workout routine scaling for beginner to advanced, and diet plans you can follow along with the workout routine to make tremendous progress.

Before we start, I want to draw your attention toward a simple weight loss myth.

Myth: You can spot-reduce fat.

A lot of fitness experts used to believe that if you perform a lot of crunches, you will burn fat from your abdominal region.

However, this is false. You cannot spot-reduce fat or lose fat from a specific part of your body. You lose fat from all over the body.

1. Cardio (Walking, Jogging, Cycling, Hiking)

Cardio is the easiest and best way to burn tons of calories. For most exercises, showing up is not enough. You need to focus and maintain a certain intensity for results.

However, with cardio, even if you just show up and perform the exercises for a certain duration, you will burn tons of calories.

Moreover, most cardio exercises will get easier as you get used to them. And once you lose a certain amount of weight or get good at cardio exercises (Jogging, Cycling, Walking), you may even start liking doing them.

Calories burned in 30 minutes: Cycling (a 30-minute moderate cycling session will burn 200+ calories, calculate specific calories here), Jogging (30-minute of jogging will burn 200-500 calories, calculate specific calories here), Walking (you can burn 100-200 calories with 30 minutes of brisk walking), Hiking (a leisurely hike will burn between 300 – 600 calories per hour, calculate specific calories here)

Cardio Workout Routine Beginner

Walking: 30 minutes of brisk walking (6 days a week)

Jogging: 30 minutes of light jogging (6 days a week)

Cycling: Start with low intensity for 5-10 minutes. Then shift to medium intensity for 3-5 minutes. Finally, alternate between high intensity (1-2 minutes) and medium intensity (3-5 minutes). Cool down for 5-10 minutes (6 days a week)

Hiking: Hike twice a week for 1-2 hours

Advanced Workout Routine

Walking: 60 minutes of brisk walking (5 days a week)

Jogging: 60 minutes of light jogging (5 days a week)

Cycling: Start with low intensity for 10-15 minutes. Then shift to medium intensity for 5 minutes. Finally, alternate between high intensity (1-2 minutes) and medium intensity (5 minutes). Cool down for 10 minutes. (5 days a week)

Hiking: Hike twice a week for 2 hours

2. Weight Lifting

If you are trying to lose weight, cardio is not a requirement.

Certainly, you can burn a lot of calories doing cardio, however, if you do weight lifting and build muscles, you can burn even more calories.

Muscles are more metabolically active than fat.

Not only do you need a lot of calories to build muscles, but you also need a lot of calories to maintain them, as muscle uses a lot more energy than fat while at rest.

That’s why building muscles burn more calories than fat.

That is also the reason why most fitness influencers lift weights.

Moreover, the best way to lose weight is through a combination of weight lifting and cardio.

You will not only lose weight quickly, but it will also be easy to maintain your progress. Moreover, as you build more muscles and improve, a whole new world of advanced exercises will open up to you.

Keep in mind, before performing any weightlifting exercise, you must learn the right form. Performing any exercise with the wrong form can cause injuries and will significantly diminish your results.

For example, If you perform squats with proper form, not only you are going to build your quadriceps, but you will also significantly improve your posture, lower back strength, hip mobility, glutes, calves, hamstrings, etc.

However, if you perform squats with the wrong form, you will not only hinder your quadriceps growth but also have injuries, hip issues, knee problems, and lower back problems.

Here’s a beginner full-body workout routine for weight loss:

You can perform this workout routine 5 days/week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday)

1. Bicep Curls: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
2. Shoulder Press: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
3. Squats: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
4. Deadlift: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
5. Lunges: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
6. Bent over rows: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
7. Leg raises: 3 sets of 15 reps

Add these exercises to grow your glutes

1. Curtsy Lunges: 3 sets of 10 reps
2. Weighted Glute bridge: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)
3. Bulgarian split squat: 3 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 50% of one rep max)

Here’s an advanced full-body workout routine for weight loss:

You can perform this workout routine 4 days/week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday)

1. Bicep Curls: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
2. Shoulder Press: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
3. Squats: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
4. Deadlift: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
5. Lunges: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
6. Bent over rows: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
7. Leg raises: 5 sets of 10 reps

Add these exercises to grow your glutes:

1. Curtsy Lunges: 4 sets of 10 reps
2. Weighted Glute bridge: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)
3. Bulgarian split squat: 4 sets of 10 reps (weight = Use 60% of one rep max)

3. Swimming

Looking for an effortless way to burn calories? try swimming

No exercise burns as many calories as swimming does while being as fun as swimming is. Moreover, it’s not just the fun part that makes swimming great.

If you are overweight, jogging or even walking for hours can cause foot pain and even knee pain.

However, with swimming, you don’t need to worry about knee pain or ankle sprain. The buoyant force of water will exert a force in an upward direction, making your feel lighter.

Water will support some of your weight, hence making movement easy on joints and reducing the chances of ankle sprain or knee pain.

This is the reason why a lot of athletes use water immersion for recovery.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is dehydration. Make sure to keep yourself hydrated while spending time in the water. On average, you should consider drinking 8 fluid ounces every 20 minutes.

Moreover, you will also build lean muscles by swimming.

Here’s a 30 minutes beginner swimming routine for weight loss:

Warm-Up: 4 × 100 m, Choice of strokes (30-second rest)

Main Workout: 1 × 100 m, Classic backstroke + 10 × 25 m, Choice of strokes (30-second rest) + 5 × 50 m, Classic backstroke (30-second rest)

Cool Down: 3 × 50 m, Freestyle (15 seconds rest)

Here’s a 30 minutes advanced swimming routine for weight loss:

Warm-Up: 5 × 100 m, Choice of strokes (30-second rest)

Main Workout: 5 × 200 m, Classic backstroke (45-second rest) + 10 × 50 m, Choice of strokes (30-second rest) + 5 × 100 m, Butterfly (30-second rest)

Cool Down: 3 × 100 m, Freestyle (30 seconds rest)

4. Yoga

I never liked yoga, and I thought it was overrated. However, as I got older, I came to realize my overall flexibility was diminishing, and due to that, I was getting injured again and again.

To restore my flexibility and reduce my chances of injuries, I started doing yoga. I didn’t start with a lot of yoga poses, just one, Surya Namaskar.

After just 2-3 weeks, I felt the difference. I regained 60% of my lost flexibility. I no longer had back pain and shoulder pain just from doing Surya Namaskar.

For the last 1-2 years (I don’t remember perfectly), I have been doing yoga consistently. I do yoga twice a week for 20-25 minutes, plus every day before the shower, I perform a single round of Surya Namaskar.

Does yoga help in weight loss? Of course, it does, however, for weight loss, you have to perform more than just a round of Surya Namaskar.

The best thing about yoga is that you are not just losing weight or improving your health, you are also improving yourself mentally and spiritually.

Moreover, It doesn’t matter how good you are at yoga or how much you know about yoga, there are yoga poses you can perform to improve your health and lose weight. I also didn’t know anything about yoga, apart from my prejudices toward it.

Here are 6 yoga poses any beginner can perform for weight loss (Hold these poses for 30 seconds):

1. Surya Namaskar: 5 rounds
2. Virabhadrasana (Warrior Pose)
3. Trikonasana (Triangle pose)
4. Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Dog pose)
5. Urdhvamukhasvanasana (Upward Facing Dog)
6. Sethu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge pose)

Advanced Yoga Routine: Perform 108 rounds of Surya Namaskar.

5. Calisthenics exercises

This is one of the most difficult ways to lose weight. However, if you lose weight through calisthenics exercises, your chances of gaining weight back are slimmer than they can ever be.

This way is for people who have all the time in the world and want to enjoy the ride of weight loss rather than making it over as soon as they can.

The benefits of losing weight with calisthenics are:

1. Your chances of gaining weight back are slim.
2. You will build lean toned muscles.
3. Your discipline will improve tremendously.
4. Your mental strength will improve tremendously.
5. You don’t need any equipment to perform calisthenics exercises (And equipment for performing high-level calisthenics exercises are very cheap).

If you want to perform calisthenics exercises for weight loss, however, you want to lose weight a little bit faster, then add cardio to your routine (Just 30 minutes of jogging per day).

Here’s a beginner workout routine you can follow to lose weight:

1. Push-ups: 3 sets of 1 minute
2. Pull-ups: 3 sets of 1 minute (Use support if necessary) (Try laying pull-ups if you are a total beginner)
3. Squats: 3 sets of 1 minute
4. ATG Split Squats: 3 sets of 5 reps
5. Hindu Pushup: 3 sets of 1 minute
6. Crunches: 3 sets of 1 minute
7. Fire hydrant: 3 sets of 90 seconds
8. Knee glute kickback: 3 sets of 90 seconds

Here’s an advanced workout routine:

1. Push-ups: 50 reps
2. Pull-ups: 50 reps
3. Squats: 50 reps
4. ATG Split Squats: 50 reps (both sides)
5. Hindu Pushup: 25 reps
6. Crunches: 50 reps
7. Fire hydrant: 50 reps (both sides)
8. Knee glute kickback: 50 reps (both sides)

Diet Ideas

You may have noticed by now that even the best and most difficult exercises burn less than 100 calories/per hour. This means that even if you are consistent for months, you may not burn more than 2-3 lbs.

However, some people manage to burn 10-20 lbs per month.

The question is, how do they make this happen?

The truth is exercise is only 20% of the equation. The rest 80% is diet. To generate significant results, you need to make tremendous changes in your diet.

Here are a few of the best diet plans you can follow along with exercise to lose weight. Depending upon your lifestyle, choose the one that suits you the best.

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is an eating plan that alternates between periods of fasting & eating. In the 16:8 method, you need to fast every day for 16 hours (out of 24 hours) and consume meals only during the 8-hour eating window.

For beginners, fasting for 16-hour straight is impossible. However, you can use a simple strategy to make this easier. All you need to do is align the fasting period with your sleep routine. This way, you will spend your first 7 hours of fasting napping and the other 9 hours getting ready for your day and sipping tea.

All you have to do in this case is skip breakfast, and you are good to go.

Moreover, You can eat whatever you like during the eating period and are allowed to consume non-calorie beverages, water, tea, and coffee, even during the fasting period.

Here’s a 7-day (16:8) Intermittent fasting plan you can follow.

Follow this diet plan if you have a busy lifestyle and hate planning meals.

Ketogenic Diet

If you want to lose weight swiftly, try the ketogenic diet.

For those who don’t know what keto is, It’s a diet plan that focuses on foods that contain a lot of fats, an adequate amount of protein, and very few carbohydrates.

Millions of people have tried the keto diet and shared their keto journey on Instagram with unbelievable before and after transformation photos. In 2020, I too lost 20+ lbs in 47 days.

Here’s an article on How to Start Keto Diet and a 10-Day Keto Diet Meal Plan you can use.

However, keto is complicated and requires a lot of planning. You should consider following keto under the guidance of your nutritionist. You can also get a custom keto diet meal plan from here.

This diet plan will also be tailored to your weight loss goals and nutritional requirements and will be created based on the expertise of certified nutritionists, personal trainers, and chefs.

Follow this diet plan if you want faster results and have time to put in the effort

Smoothie Diet

The Smoothie diet was created by Drew Sgoutas, a certified health coach and nutrition expert.

According to him, eating healthy doesn’t have to be complicated. The secret to weight loss is just consuming whole food while avoiding processed stuff.

The Smoothie diet came into existence just because Drew was trying to make the meal prep as simple as possible for his clients.

In a smoothie diet, all you need to replace two of your meals with smoothies. You can eat only one solid meal per day and two snacks.

Moreover, solid meals should consist mostly of whole foods, and snacks should be low in sugar and high in fiber, no more than 200 calories per serving. The Smoothie diet works by creating a calorie deficit, and the 21-Day Smoothie Diet Plan provides a total of around 1,500 calories per day.

It takes less than 50 seconds to create a smoothie, and many of them taste like dessert, like the chocolate cherry smoothie.

In brief, Smoothie Diet focuses on three things:

1. Reducing the number of calories you consume daily
2. Boosting critical nutrients, you need to stay healthy & lose weight
3. Making dieting enjoyable so that you stick with it

Here’s a 7-Day Smoothie Diet Plan you can follow. You can try the 21-Day Smoothie Diet Challenge created by Drew Sgoutas CHC, AADP, by clicking here.

The diet encourages a variety of nutrient-dense foods, like fruits, vegetables, and nuts, all of which are high in fiber. As a result, most of the smoothies are incredibly filling.

Follow this diet plan if you want faster results and have time to plan meals. Moreover, this diet plan is the easiest to stick to.

Conclusion

Just by using one exercise from the list mentioned above, you can lose 10+ lbs within a month. However, you have to stay consistent for the whole month.

Depending upon your lifestyle and goal, pick one or two exercises and start performing the workout routine related to it mentioned above. Within a week or two, you will start seeing results.

Then if you are satisfied with the results, keep following the same routine. However, if you want better results, add more exercises to your routine.

Make sure you are strictly measuring your progress and are consistent with your efforts.

If you have trouble staying consistent, read the articles mentioned below.

1. 5 Things You Need to Cure Procrastination in 2023
2. 73 Rules to End Procrastination
3. 5 Lifestyle Changes That Boosted My Productivity By 85%

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