Lose Weight By Exercising Without Even Leaving Home

Exercising for Weight Loss Without Even Leaving Your House

Do you want to lose weight but find that you always eat too much? Exercise may the the missing key for you. While it's true that exercise burns calories and will help you to lose weight directly, what's not as well known is that exercise of the right type has appetite-suppressing effects that make it much easier to stick to a diet.
What type of exercise do you need to lose weight? If you want the exercise to help you shed those pounds, you need at least half an hour of 'aerobic' or cardiovascular ("cardio") exercise every other day.
Aerobic exercise has nothing to do with putting on lycra and prancing about in front of gigantic mirror to pop music however. Aerobic exercise means the kind of exercise that causes you to breathe faster and to sweat, and your heart to beat faster.
This kind of exercise, if performed regularly for some weeks, will tend to suppress your appetite as well as burning calories and helping your overall health.
Many forms of exercise such as yoga or slow walking, have other benefits but won't necessarily help you to lose weight, unless slow walking is itself enough to make you breathe harder.
In order to gain the full benefits of aerobic exercise, you need to be out of breath to the point where you can still carry on a conversation but are breathing steadily at a much higher rate than normal. Exercises such as running and swimming can definitely do this for you, but you can also exercise very effectively without even leaving your home.
If you don't mind making a noise and you're fairly light on your feet, a simple skipping rope might do the trick for you. Yes, skipping can be very good aerobic exercise. But to make things easier, an exercise machine can help.
Two of the best machines to try are
Exercise bikes
Cross trainers



Both of these types of machine can be bought for not much more than 100 US dollars. But be careful, because the cheapest machines can be worse than useless; you need a robust machine with a smooth action. Preferably buy a machine that contains a magnetic flywheel or air resistance; these machines have the smoothest action, and air resistance machines also keep you cool while you exercise.
If you buy online on Amazon, be sure to get a machine that has a good star rating and good reviews; a bad machine will act as a heavy disincentive to exercise.
You can often also rent machines locally; I rent a maintenance-free cross trainer from a local exercise equipment shop.
Cross trainers are absolutely fantastic, low-impact exercise machines, but I need to add a couple of caveats. Firstly, don't use the arm bars! Unless you like them, that is. Cross trainers enable you to "run" on the spot while standing upright, but with a cyclical motion. They feel a bit like a cross between running and cycling, but in my opinion they're easier than both. Many people feel they want to lose weight from their arms, and cross-trainers pander to this idea with two bars that you can move backwards and forwards as you run. But in fact it is not possible to lose weight from a particular area of your body, at least not without dangerous surgery.
What you need to do is concentrate on using the biggest muscles in your body, located in your legs and buttocks. So if you buy a cross-trainer, my advice is use the leg part and ignore the arm bit.
The other thing to be aware of is that when you first get on a cross trainer, it'll feel utterly bizarre. Don't be discouraged! That feeling wears off completely after two or three half-hour sessions. I love my cross trainer, and using it feels completely natural to me now, even though when I first got on it, I remember thinking that I'd never get used to it!
One last absolutely vital tip. If you like music, buy a cheap mp3 player and load it up with the most invigorating, upbeat music you can find that you enjoy listening to. Be prepared to spend a fair bit of time on this; it's well worthwhile. If you've ever had that feeling of suddenly getting a burst of energy when you hear music that you love, well, you can get that feeling in spades, regularly, by using a cross-trainer or exercise bike while listening to your favourite songs!