Give Me 5 Minutes and I'll Teach You The Best Exercise To Lose Weight

Do you know the best exercise to lose weight?  You might be surprised when you hear the answer.  If you’re like the thousands of people who run endlessly on treadmills hoping for results that never come, this article is perfect for you.  It always depresses me to see all the misinformation and unfounded claims in the fitness and dieting world.  These myths and strange ideas get recycled, reprinted and repeated so many times that people start believing they’re true.  And all of this while we’ve got lots of real scientific evidence to support things that actually DO get results.

One of the reasons I think these things spread around is that they make a bit of sense.  For example, cardio sounds like the best exercise to lose weight the first time you hear about it.  It seems to most people like it would work.  You do a low intensity workout that gets you into fat burning mode, and you continue it for longer hours so the calories come off.  Sounds like it might work!  But science says, “No it doesn’t.”  There is more and more evidence getting published all the time that says cardio isn’t the best exercise to lose weight.  In fact, this evidence also suggests that it’s not the best thing for your cardiovascular system either.

What I’ve just described I like to call ‘steady state’ cardio.  It’s included in lots of the trendy weight loss programs you see popping up.  If you spend any time at the gym, you’re sure to see people doing this.  They come month after month and do their cardio workout, all with the promise that they’re slowly and steadily burning it off.  Unfortunately, what they find is that after months of ‘slow and steady,’ nothing changes at all.  They’ve been told that it will be gradual, so they’ve been patient.  Can you imagine how unmotivating it is to work and work, but still get no results?  They say that 3 months is the amount of time most people stick to a program before quitting.  With ‘steady state’ cardio, you can really see why.

High intensity interval training, or HIIT, is really the best exercise to lose weight.  This type of training involves short periods of extremely high intensity workout with longer periods of lower intensity exercise or rest.  The high intensity part is done in repetitive cycles, and it really is intense.  It has to be very intense in order to get results, but these bursts of intensity only last around 20 minutes.  The routine has to be intense if it’s going to help, especially for people who are in poor cardiovascular shape or overweight.

You can start doing HIIT training easily with a simple treadmill.  Get on your treadmill and set it to a walking speed that’s brisk but comfortable.  Do this for a minute, and then push the speed up until you are running.  Keep running for a minute, and then slow it back down to your walking speed.  The walking speed is your low intensity period, and your running speed is the high intensity period.  Each time you run, increase the speed slightly until you start to really feel it.  Do the whole routine for 20 minutes and then you’re all done.  For best results, do this 3 or 4 times each week and it will start to make a difference.

HIIT is the best exercise to lose weight, but it’s much more than that.  It promotes better heart fitness than cardio as well.  This means that you gain a healthier heart and less need to go to the gym.  The only thing that you’ll lose through HIIT is your body fat!