Getting back on track can be challenging if you’ve fallen behind regarding fitness or let yourself go for a little while. Many Americans are overweight or obese, and there are a lot of factors that play into that.
But if you’re among them, know that you’re not alone and that it is entirely possible to get yourself back to a healthy body weight. It’ll take hard work, sacrifice, and a lot of goal-setting, but it’s quite possible. And the first thing to do — after getting your diet and consumption habits under control — is to start burning calories. A lot of them — and you can do that with the help of these calorie-crushing workouts.
While there is no silver bullet for weight loss regarding tricks or wonder pills, there is a relatively simple calculation that you can do to get you started. It all starts with calories in and calories out. If you’re consuming more calories (energy) in a day than burning off, your body will store them as body fat. If you’re burning off more calories than you’re eating, you’ll lose weight. If you want to lose weight, you need to be running at a caloric deficit.
One way to help you hit a running deficit is to include a heavy workout in your daily routine — an exercise that will burn through a significant amount of calories, giving you a bit more leeway with your diet. And that’s precisely what The Cheat Sheet is bringing to you on the following pages.
The following workouts and exercises present ways to burn a serious number of calories if you’re someone who has targeted weight loss as a goal. Coupled with a zeroed-in diet, these workouts will help you start shedding pounds sooner.
1. Distance running
There is probably no easier or simpler way to burn calories than running. It’s the most basic and primal of all exercises and, when done in long stretches or with high intensity, can burn through a significant amount of calories. So start a running program — here’s a shortlist to help get you started — and use it in concert with a healthy diet and maybe some weight lifting. The pounds should start melting off if you stay within your caloric goals. You can burn around 100 calories per mile, depending on your speed.
2. Kettlebell workouts
Kettlebells are becoming immensely popular, and with good reason. Not only do they present an excellent way to build muscle, but many kettlebell exercises burn significant amounts of calories while you’re doing them. Suppose you can find a way to put together a kettlebell circuit workout with minimal rest periods. In that case, you’ll find yourself getting a solid cardio workout along with the benefits of building muscle. Studies have shown that some exercises can lead to 400 torched calories in as little as 20 minutes regarding total calories burned.
3. Supersets
You’re going to want to adopt supersets for those of you who’d instead burn some calories in the weight room rather than with kettlebells or on the track. A superset is the pairing of two exercises with minimal rest periods. There are many ways to do them, so do some exploring and experimenting. Then, if you adopt them, they should get you in shape quickly.
