Super Busy? Try Passive Workout Routine For Weight Loss

Before we start, let me clear something; This passive workout routine, as the name suggests, is not for hardcore gym lovers. It’s for people who are trying to get into the healthy habit of exercising, however, due to their oppressive work culture are unable to.

This routine is for people who want to get healthy, build muscles, and lose weight, however, don’t have the time or discipline to reach their fitness goal.

This is the bare minimum to lose weight, get healthy passively, The passive workout routine.

What makes this workout effective is how easy it is to maintain consistency with this routine & the surplus growth rewarded due to the focus on intensity.

In the passive workout routine, you are going to perform simple, effective exercises throughout the day to produce growth. This workout routine contains cardio, yoga, and weight lifting.

Without further delay, here’s the list of exercises you are going to perform in the passive workout routine.

Exercises in the Passive Workout Routine

Make sure you learn how to perform each exercise perfectly. Every rep you perform with the right form is better than 100s of reps performed incorrectly.

Moreover, you only need a pair of dumbbells to perform these exercises (amazon). You can also use two water bottles of the same size as weight. Depending on how much weight you need, fill the water bottle with water or sand.

Here are 11 exercises + yoga poses you are going to perform in the passive workout routine.

1. Jumping Jacks

Jumping jacks is the simplest exercise on the list, and it targets the whole body. Jumping jacks will improve your aerobic capacity and metabolism. Moreover, your resting heart rate and blood pressure will also decrease.

2. Bicep Curls

Bicep curls target biceps brachii, brachialis, and brachioradialis. This is the simplest exercise you can perform to build upper arm muscles. By performing this exercise consistently, you will build toned muscle and boost your overall athletic performance.

3. Shoulder Press

The shoulder press is an upper-body exercise that helps build the trapezoid, deltoid, and triceps. The best part is you will improve your overall strength and posture by performing this exercise consistently.

4. Squat

This is the most basic exercise you can perform to build the gluteus maximus, minimus, and medius (buttocks), quadriceps (front of the thigh), and hamstrings (back of the thigh).

By performing this exercise consistently, not only you will build leanly toned muscles, your overall balance, stability, hip flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance will improve.

5. Surya Namaskar

Surya Namaskar is a sequence of twelve yoga poses linked by a continuous flowing motion.

Poses that makeup Surya namaskar include Pranamasana (Prayer pose), Hastauttanasana (Raised arms pose), Hastapadasana (Standing forward bend), Ashwa Sanchalanasana (Equestrian pose), Dandasana (Stick pose), Ashtanga Namaskara (Salute with eight parts), Bhujangasana (Cobra pose), Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward facing dog pose), Ashwa Sanchalanasana (Equestrian pose), Hastapadasana (Standing forward bend), Hastauttanasana (Raised arms pose), and Tadasana (Mountain Pose).

6. 5-Minute Walk

There are numerous benefits of walking (Improves cardiovascular fitness, strengthens bones and muscles, increases energy levels, improves muscle endurance, reduces stress and tension, helps in weight loss, better digestion, and reduced blood sugar level).

In the passive workout routine, walking is also a part of the exercise routine. All you have to do is walk for 5 minutes after meals.

Walking for just 5 minutes may not have tremendous benefits, however, that still is better than lying on the sofa after a meal.

7. Waterfall Pose

All the yoga poses from here on are part of the night yoga routine. You are going to perform them before bed. To perform a waterfall yoga pose, lie on your back and angle your legs 90 degrees in the air from your body.

8. Happy Baby Pose

To perform the Happy Baby Yoga pose, lie on your back, grab the bottoms of your feet, and bend your knees, as you push them away from your body. This yoga pose stretches, realigns, and eases tension in your spine.

9. Wind-Relieving Pose

To perform the Wind-Relieving Yoga pose, lie flat on your back with both legs tucked to your chest. Wind-relieving yoga pose combats gas and bloating and also improves blood circulation to the hip joints.

10. Sleeping Butterfly Pose

To perform the Sleeping Butterfly Yoga pose, lie on your back, bend your knees with your feet together in front of your hips, and relax. This pose helps relieve tension and tightness in the lower back, hips, and inner thighs.

11. Supported Child’s Pose

To perform the Supported Child’s Pose, Take a pillow and sit on one end with your thighs spread to the sides of the pillow. Fold over to rest your body on the pillow.

This pose helps in opening the hips, relieving tension in the pelvis, increasing blood flow to the head and neck, and stimulating the digestive system.

Passive Workout Routine For Weight Loss

This passive workout routine includes cardio, weight lifting, and yoga all mixed together. You need to perform this workout routine daily.

1. Morning (Right after waking up): Jumping jacks (1 set of 30 reps) + Bicep curls (1 set of 30 reps) + Shoulder press (1 set of 30 reps) + Squat (1 set of 30 reps) (max 6-minutes)
2. During shower: Surya Namaskar (3 rounds) (max 2-minutes)
3. After lunch: 5-minute walk to digest food
4. After dinner: 5-minute walk to digest food
5. Before going to bed: 5 yoga poses (Waterfall pose, Happy baby pose, Wind-relieving pose, Sleeping butterfly pose, Supported child’s pose) (max 3-minutes)

For weight-lifting exercises, use weights you are comfortable with.

You may be thinking, why perform 1 set of 30 reps when you can perform 2 sets of 15 reps or 3 sets of 10 reps. The thing is muscle growth is directly proportional to the intensity.

The higher the intensity is, lesser the time you need to spend training, and the more your muscles will grow. For instance, performing 1 set of 60 reps will produce more results compared to 10 sets of 10 reps (squats) as the intensity is higher.

Moreover, you can train in two ways to produce growth.

Either you train with low intensity for a longer duration, or you can train with high intensity for a short duration.

You have less time. Hence, we are going to use the high-intensity training model to force growth.

Yoga in the passive workout routine will improve flexibility, mobility, and overall wellbeing. A 5-minute walk after lunch/dinner will help digest food and burn calories.

There is a study that suggests walking just after a meal is more effective for weight loss than waiting for one hour to walk after a meal.

Diet Plan

Weight loss is 20% exercise and 80% diet. To lose weight successfully, you have to make changes in your diet plan. Here are a few diet plans you can try:

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.

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

This diet plan is perfect for you 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

To make this routine effective, you have to perform this routine at a fixed time. If you don’t have a strict sleep cycle, I would recommend making the required adjustments before starting this routine.

You may feel uncomfortable performing this routine for the first few weeks, however, once you get used to this workout routine, it will become as simple as brushing your teeth or having a shower.

However, keep one thing in mind, you cannot postpone any exercise routine.

For example, the first routine is to perform a few exercises right after you wake up. If you postpone them to a little while later when you have more time, then the passive workout routine kinda loses its meaning.

You have to perform the exercise routine at the same time every day, and it should not matter how much time you have during the day.

This way, you will be able to maintain your shape for decades without even hitting the gym once.

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