7 Best Exercises to Lose Weight at Home

Exercise is essential for your overall health. Good health and weight loss are interrelated. If a person has a higher body mass index, then they are prone to several disorders like hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, and other cardiovascular problems. Exercise becomes also very crucial for the effective management of these conditions. If you are diagnosed with diabetes, you can try out these exercises for diabetes to keep your blood sugar levels in check.  

Two important factors that need to be considered to lose weight are exercise and dieting. The balance between the two is very important. In your everyday routine, if you follow your diet and skip exercise or work out intensely and not follow your diet then you will see your body behaving very differently. 

Exercise has many benefits attached to it along with weight loss. Exercise improves your mood, strengthens your bones, and reduces the risk of many chronic diseases. People tend to pull themselves out from exercise as they won’t have the time to hit the gym or even cannot afford to join a gym or personal trainers to guide them on their fitness journey.

Friendly Reminder: The information shared here is for educational purposes only and the reader should consult a registered medical practitioner before implementing any changes to their health routine.

7 Best Exercises to Lose Weight at Home

So, here we would like to suggest to you the 7 best and popular exercise programs that you can practice at home and make yourself stronger, fitter and healthier. 

Cardio exercise along with weight training (at least twice a week) along with calorie deficit diet is a great way of losing weight without losing muscle mass, however, if one exercises in the morning, he/she will be benefitted more because endogenous steroid secretion inside our body is greater in the morning which aids weight loss and helps in building up muscles.

Dr. Nikhil Yadav, MBBS MD,CCEBDM

1. Aerobic Exercises

Walking is considered one of the best weight loss exercises. Walking at a fast pace is a great exercise for burning calories. An exercise program that puts minimal stress on your joints and can be incorporated into your day-to-day activities.

According to many studies, A 70-kg individual burns around 167 calories per 30 minutes of walking at a pace of 6.4 kph. It is also observed that an individual can reduce their body fat by an average of 1.5% and waist circumference by 2.8 cm by walking for 50-70 minutes 3 times per week.

Jogging and Running are considered to be the king of weight loss exercises. These exercises are total body integrated exercises. It will strengthen your legs and be very effective for belly fat. The major difference between running and jogging is the pace. Jogging is between 6 – 9 kph and running will be around 10 kph.

Running and Jogging will approximately help burn 372 calories per 30 minutes and 298 calories per 30 minutes respectively. The combination of these 3 exercises will certainly help improve your muscular strength and overall body weight to keep you fit and healthy. 

Exercise Pattern

Set aside 1 hour of your time and include these exercises in your routine.

• Start with walking exercise for 15 minutes.
• Increase your pace and start Jogging for the next 15 minutes.
• With a constant increase in pace, run for another 15 minutes.
• Reduce your pace and come back to jogging for 10 minutes.
• Relax your body and slow down your pace and walk for 5 minutes.

2. Skipping or Jumping Rope

Skipping exercise offers a complete body workout and helps increase your muscle strength, metabolism, and burn many calories in a short time. 

Skipping exercise done regularly will bring in calmness and help to ease depression and anxiety. The workout also increases your heart rate which results in faster pumping of blood across your body to keep your heart in a better and healthy condition. Along with your heart, this exercise takes care of your lungs by keeping them functioning and healthy.

Everybody has a distinctive body and which makes the process obtain different results. Losing weight is nothing but burning more calories than you intake and skipping will surely help you do that. This form of exercise approximately burns calories close to 1300 per hour. 

Exercise Pattern

• On a flat surface, stand with your back straight.
• Make sure your feet are together and pointing straight.
• Keep your hand straight pointing downwards close to your thighs.
• Jump off the ground and let your rope pass under your feet and bring it back.
• Repeat these steps and increase your jumping speed constantly.

3. Planks

Plank Pose or Plank exercise is one of the most effective full-body workouts. The biggest advantage of Plank’s workout is it targets most of the major muscle groups in the body. It strengthens your muscles in the core, shoulder, arms, chest, back, and hips. Along with these benefits, Plank exercises help in quickly burning the excess fats and calories from the body. 

A workout that seems to be a simple and easy one but it’s quite exhausting and intense. The plank exercise is a great example of the longer you workout the better will be your results. You need to focus on holding your plank position for a longer period to find quick and better results.

Plank exercise has different variations that target different muscle and body areas. Each variation is very helpful and keeps improving your core strength, body balance, endurance, and posture. 

Plank Exercise Variations

The Standard Plank: It is also known as The Extended Arms Plank. This position is best suited for beginners who are looking forward to improving their core strength. This workout is great for improving metabolic activity and digestion. The forearm Plank variation is an identical version of the extended arms plank. The target areas of this workout are the core, arms, shoulders, and back.

The Mountain Climbers: Considered as one of the intense variations of plank workout. A full-body workout that burns excess calories and fat from the body. The targeted areas of this workout are the biceps, hamstring muscles, core, triceps, and chest.

Exercise Pattern

• Get down into the Push-Up or Standard Plank Position.
• Now bend your right knee and pull it towards your chest.
• Push your right knee back to your initial position.
• Now bend your left knee and get it towards your chest.
• Push your left knee back to your initial position
• Continue the above steps around 20-25 times.

The Reverse Plank: This is a variation of the standard plank but done in a reverse manner. This workout is an excellent way to stretch your body. A workout that reduces unnecessary fats and calories from your body. It helps in strengthening your core, shoulders, back, chest, and gluteal muscles. 

Exercise Pattern

• Sit down and extend your legs in front of you.
• Place your hands behind your hips for your upper body support.
• Now lift your hips by straightening your hand and form a straight line with your body.
• Hold this position for 40-60 seconds.
• Repeat these steps and methods around 20-30 times.

4. Push-Ups and Pull-Ups

Push-ups are one of the most popular exercises and it is a workout that can be done at any time, any place, and by anyone. Push-ups exercise is very useful for weight loss as it pushes your body away from the ground and exerts energy which in turn burns calories. 

Push-up exercises are good as it burns calories quickly and makes you focus on the larger muscles in your upper body. Push-up workout also focuses on your chest, shoulders, back, biceps, and triceps. Push up exercise will also strengthen your core muscles and make your body physically stable and healthy.

Push-ups help in building more lean muscles in our chest, shoulders, biceps, and triceps. If you keep practicing push-ups for weeks or months or years, then you will build a great amount of muscle mass, and to maintain your muscle your body has to expend its calories. 

Exercise Pattern

• Look for anti-slippery and flat surfaces.
• Place your hands facing forward and slightly wider than your shoulder width.
• Set your feet together or slightly apart in a comfortable position. Initially, you can keep your feet further apart until you find a proper balance.
• Now bend your shoulders as low as possible towards the floor and push up back and straighten your arms.
• Repeat these steps for 15 reps and 3 sets.

Pull-ups focus on several muscle groups that burn more calories as multiple muscles like biceps, triceps, back and core are working together. This workout can aid you to get in shape, increasing your ability to burn fat and boosting your metabolism. To complete a pull-up it nearly takes 15 muscles and the primary muscles are your lats and biceps.

According to the study, doing a pull-up workout will help you burn nearly 10 calories per minute. It is recommended that at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity workout have to be done each week as cardio is one of the best ways to burn calories.

Exercise Pattern

• Grip the pull-up bar with your arms fully stretched by standing straight.
• Now bend your knees and pull yourself until your chin clears the bar.
• Come back to your original position slowly.
• Repeat these steps for 15 reps and 4 sets.

5. Squats

Squat exercises are known as muscle strengthening exercises. The main aim of this exercise is to improve the lower part of the body. Squats help burn calories and prevent fat from accumulating in your lower part of the body. This exercise helps improve your mobility and also balance. A beginner should aim for 3 sets of 12-15 reps of at least one type of squat to expect better results.

Exercise Pattern:

• Stand straight with your feet wider than your hip width with toes facing front.
• By bending your knees and ankles push your hips back.
• Sit into a squat position by keeping your heels and toes on the ground.
• Keep your knees bent to a 90-degree angle and pose yourself parallel to the floor.
• Straighten your legs by pressing your heels and return to the standing position.

6. Lunges

A popular strength training workout that strengthens and tones your lower body and improves overall fitness and athletic performance. Lunges mainly focus on strengthening your back, hips, and legs. 

Lunges help in building lean muscle and reduce body fat. It is important to push yourself and include lunges in a high-intensity workout routine with the help of heavyweights. The single-leg movements involved in this workout stabilizes muscles to develop balance, stability, and coordination. 

Exercise Pattern

• Stand straight with your back and abs upright.
• Bend your knee by keeping your right leg in the front.
• Now, bend your knee until your right thigh is parallel to the ground and left one perpendicular.
• Keep your front knee above your heel.
• Come back and bring your feet together.
• Repeat the above steps with your left leg.
• 30 reps of alternate lunges are very helpful.

Along with exercises that need to be done at your place for weight loss. There are other factors and methods that can be helpful for weight management.

7. Yoga

Yoga, a 5000-year-old transcription has proved to be an effective weight loss therapy. It is believed to be developed by Rishis and Brahmans and has 5 basic principles: Exercise, Diet, Breathing, Relaxation, and Meditation.

The combination of Yoga and healthy eating has proven beneficial as it helps to lose weight along with keeping your body and mind healthy. It also improves your mindfulness and relation with your body. You can also lower your blood sugar levels by practicing yoga for diabetes. 

Along with weight loss as its benefit, Yoga has more benefits to offer such as:

1. Improved Cardio Health
2. Increased Muscle tone
3. Balanced Metabolism
4. Improved Respiration
5. Increased Flexibility
6. Stress Management

Yoga Poses are an integral part of weight reduction. Yoga poses focus mostly on improving concentration and building your muscle tone. Your body should get used to these poses to yield maximum benefits from yoga.

Some of the yoga poses that should be practiced for weight loss are:

1. Warrior Pose
2. Triangle Pose
3. Shoulder Pose
4. Bridge Pose
5. Bow Pose
6. Plank Pose
7. Downward Dog Pose
8. Sun Salutation

Calories Burned With Different Exercises

Here is a quick guide on how many calories different exercises burn within what time. Note that these are just general figures and the actual amount will depend on a variety of factors like your weight, age, fitness level, the intensity of your workout and the amount of time you put into each exercise: 

• Jogging/Running: 372 to 700 calories per hour
• Skipping Rope: 500-1300 calories per hour depending on weight
• Planking: Between 2-5 calories per minute (120-300 calories per hour)
• Mountain Climbers Planks: 650 – 700 calories per hour
• Pull ups: 1 calorie per pull up
• Push ups: About 171 calories within 15 minutes (around 343 calories in 30 minutes)
• Squats: 19-44 calories per every 5 minutes (100-222 calories for every 25 minutes)
• Lunges: 90 calories per 15 minutes
• Yoga: Between 180 and 460 calories per session (highly dependent on the type, intensity, duration of the session)

Best Time to Exercise

Perhaps the best time to do your daily workout routine is early in the morning. The main reason behind this is that exercising on an empty stomach is the best way to burn stored fat. Even if you feel irritated by the early alarm clocks at first, it will slowly become a habit for you, a good one at that. Say, you wake up every day at 7 am in the morning. This way your biological clock shifts earlier, thereby making you tired quickly in the evening or night. This helps in maintaining the schedule diligently.

However, there have been studies that suggest that working out in the evening can be better as our bodies use lesser oxygen during that time, which may help enhance our performance and in turn lose weight. Nonetheless, the studies are quite limited and the majority of researchers direct towards morning as the favored time to exercise if you want to lose weight at home.

Diet Tips For Weight Loss

Follow these tips to make sure your weight loss programme at home is done properly:

• Do not fall prey to fad diets that promise results in a short amount of time.
• Beware of alluring weight loss pills and belts which may only give short term results.
• Starving yourself is certainly not the right answer as it can lead to other problems like acidity, nausea, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Disclaimer: The information provided here is for educational/awareness purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical treatment by a healthcare professional and should not be relied upon to diagnose or treat any medical condition. The reader should consult a registered medical practitioner to determine the appropriateness of the information and before consuming any medication. PharmEasy does not provide any guarantee or warranty (express or implied) regarding the accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of the information; and disclaims any liability arising thereof.

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