There are many reasons why people cycle; that is not really our focus here. In this guide, we’ll focus only on the common reason why most engage in cycling; weight loss.
Many people try to shed that extra pound without incorporating exercise into their weight loss regimen. Sadly, what they don’t realize is that aerobic exercises boost the potential for a daily caloric deficit. In other words, aerobic exercises can help you burn more calories.
Cycling: A form of Aerobic Exercise
What are aerobic exercises? For starters, aerobic exercises are cardiovascular exercises that engage your heart to thump faster than when you were at rest. They keep your heart and lungs healthy, including your circulatory system.
Aerobic exercises include jogging, swimming, cycling, biking, walking, etc.
However, aerobic exercises should be done in conjunction with other weight loss regimens to make them more effective. Here are 7 tips to help you lose weight via cycling.
Losing Weight with Indoor Cycling
If you’re like most people who want to lose weight, cycling is the best place to start. Furthermore, cycling helps maintain healthy levels of blood pressure, lowers your blood insulin concentration, and has a low risk of injury.
Cycling also plays a role in your mental health. That’s right! After cycling sessions, your body releases endorphins, also known as feel-good chemicals. These chemicals can boost your moods and help you cope with pain.
However, as we stated earlier, the correct weight loss regimen is a combination of aerobic exercises like cycling and dietary modifications. Below are some tips to assist you on this journey.
Quality Sleep Is Key
The need for a good night of quality sleep cannot be overemphasized. First off, quality sleep releases growth hormones, the hormone responsible for growth in children, but in adults, it helps build lean muscle.
Each time you exercise, muscles are torn, and this is responsible for the pain and soreness felt after workout sessions. These muscles need to recover, which is crucial to your weight loss and fitness regimen. How do you recover? Through good quality sleep!
The growth hormone released during sleep assists your body in building up your torn muscles.
Good sleep also prepares your body before each workout session so that you perform at your best capacity. That’s to say; sleeping is just as important as cycling for weight loss.
On the other hand, being short on sleep leads to weight gain. If you aim to lose weight, this could be counterproductive. Short sleep has been linked to obesity and a higher BMI (Body Mass Index).
To be safe, 7-9 hours per night before workout sessions are ideal for your weight loss program. As an added bonus, good quality sleep puts a check on your appetite.
Challenge Your Body With High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
Regardless of your strength level, you can challenge your body with a HIIT workout routine. A type of cardio exercise, HIIT, is a workout that alternates short bursts of intense exercise with brief periods of rest usually at a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3.
Let’s imagine you do an intense workout at high resistance for 30 seconds; this means you’ll be resting or doing low intensity for 60 seconds.
The rest periods are to prep your body for the next round. The short bursts of intense resistance should give you a feel of riding your bike uphill; this means you should adjust the resistance according to your strength level.
How much HIIT is enough? HIIT workouts don’t have to be long, 15-30 minutes a week can get you enough calorie burn.
Don’t push yourself too hard; complement it with other forms of exercise, once or twice a week to get optimal results. Doing too much can be counterproductive and will put enough pressure on your joints, bones, and muscles.
Among other things, the benefits of HIIT workout include loss of visceral or abdominal fat, it supports a healthy heart, lowering blood pressure, building muscle mass, and improving oxygen consumption.
Opt for Cross-training
You could make cycling lots of fun by incorporating cross-training. What is cross-training?
It’s about pairing workouts with a variety of exercises. For example, you can spend today on indoor cycling; the next day, you’re on the treadmill or a rowing machine.
And, if you’re a busy person and can’t hit the gym every other day, you can complement your cycling with sit-ups, press-ups, squats, lunges, etc.
When it comes to weight loss, cross-training is a medium-intensity exercise that will help you achieve your goals as you burn off excess body fat over time.
Because you are less likely to get bored with your weight loss routine, cross-training will build your mental focus so that you can stick to the plan for a long time.
Furthermore, it helps you increase strength, power, speed, endurance, agility, balance and improve your overall fitness.
Cross-training should not be confused with CrossFit; another term that gets thrown around easily and is constantly mistaken for cross-training.
Though both programs incorporate a variety of exercises into your workouts, CrossFit is highly intense and functional.
Functional movements are part and parcel of our everyday life, for example, how you sit, walk, lift objects off the ground, etc.
Getting better at CrossFit translates to getting better at your day-to-day body movements.
Try LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State)
Low-intensity steady state, LISS for short, is a cardio workout at low or moderate intensity for an extended period. Heart rate is maintained at 50 to 70% of your maximum heart rate.
Unlike HIIT, which scorches fat at a fast rate, LISS is done at a slow and steady pace and is quite effective in burning fat at a lower rate.
While HIIT depends on individual strength levels, LISS is beneficial for the full spectrum of ages. However, when HIIT and LISS are combined, they can help you hit your weight loss goals in a very short time.
In summary, LISS can help you achieve great results with little effort. Even if you don’t like the idea, I highly recommend mixing a bit of LISS in your indoor cycling routing for quicker weight loss
Stick to the Diet and Avoid Sugar
This guide was supposed to be about cycling weight loss tips, right? Yeah. But, what you don’t know is, poor dieting could sabotage all your efforts. Let’s explain the concept of weight gain and weight loss.
Our body weight is determined by two factors: the amount of energy taken in via eating and the amount of energy lost via our day-to-day activities. If the amount of energy we take in through eating is greater than the amount of energy lost, it leads to weight gain and vice-versa.
Besides genetic factors that can play a role in our body weight, we are all in control of our weight. We are in control of the amount of food we consume. And, to a large extent, we can also control our energy output.
Therefore, any approach to weight loss that does not involve controlling how much you eat is dead on arrival. You must cut back on your food consumption as you increase physical activity to achieve weight loss. You must cut back on your sugar consumption as well.
A high sugar intake has been linked to weight gain and a host of health problems. A good start involves creating a 30-day meal and workout plan and sticking to it. An ideal meal plan should be plant-based and low on carbs and fat, high in fibers, vegetables, etc.
Incorporate Fasted Training In Your Workouts
As the name implies, it’s a training that’s usually carried out before breakfasts or periods when carbs availability in your blood is low. In this way, your body is forced to use its fat and glycogen stores to generate energy.
However, there’s a caveat. If you plan to exercise for long periods, fasted training may be counterproductive and drive you into ravenous feeding.
Set Smart goals
The SMART goals checklist will keep you on track and prevent you from veering off. Each letter in “SMART” stands for something.
- Specific. Your goals should be specific and not broad. For example, saying you want to lose weight sounds broad. Saying you want to lose 1kg per week is specific.
- Measurable. Your goals must be measurable in order to track your progress. This means you need to attach a number to your goal.
- Attainable. Don’t set unrealistic goals. For example, don’t say you want to lose 3kg when you’ve never lost 1kg once in your life. The aim is to set goals that should challenge you to do more, and not overwhelm you.
- Relevant. What’s motivating you to lose weight? Will weight loss play a key role in your health? Or, to put it another way, does your being overweight affect your health and day-to-day activities?
- Time-bound. Your goal should be time-bound. For example, while you aim to lose weight, you can say in 2 months, I want to lose 5% of my total weight. The time set should be reasonable too.
Setting a smart goal is very crucial to your weight loss journey. Goals like these give you direction and set you up for success.
On a Final Note
These seven tips, when done correctly, will assist you in losing weight in a short time. Plus, don’t forget to have fun while you are at it; it makes the whole experience worthwhile and enjoyable!
FAQs About Cycling and Weight Loss
Is indoor cycling good for weight loss on stomach?
The jury is still out on this one. Some people swear by it, while others find that they don’t lose any weight on stomach after indoor cycling. As for my personal experience, yes indoor cycling is good for weight loss on stomach.
There are a few things to keep in mind if you’re trying to lose weight with indoor cycling. First, make sure you’re going at a vigorous pace – you should be breathing hard and breaking a sweat.
Second, make sure you’re eating enough protein and healthy fats; if your body doesn’t have the nutrients it needs, it will hold on to every last pound of fat in order to survive. Finally, make sure you’re not overdoing it – like anything else, too much indoor cycling can actually backfire and lead to weight gain.
Will indoor cycling help with weight loss?
Indoor cycling is a great way to lose weight. It’s a calorie-burning activity that can help you burn more calories than you consume, which can lead to weight loss over time. And because it’s low-impact, indoor cycling is a great workout option for people of all fitness levels.
Whether you’re just starting out or you’re a seasoned pro, indoor cycling can help you reach your weight-loss goals. Here are some tips to help you get started:
-Start slowly and gradually increase your intensity level as you become more comfortable with the workout.
-Ride at a moderate intensity level for at least 30 minutes per session.
-Choose a class or workout that has intervals.
Indoor cycling weight loss program
HIIT cycling is a great way to burn calories and improve your fitness level. Cycling at a high intensity for short periods of time (20-30 seconds) followed by a period of rest (60-90 seconds) will help you lose weight and get in shape fast.
Another great thing about HIIT cycling is that it can be done indoors on a stationary bike, so it’s perfect for rainy days or winter months when you can’t get outside to ride. Just make sure you increase the resistance on the bike so that you’re working hard during the high-intensity intervals.
How long should I cycle to lose weight indoors?
How long you cycle indoors to lose weight depends on a few factors, such as your age, gender, weight, and how active you are during the day.
Generally speaking, engaging in moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic activity for 30 minutes per day is recommended for healthy adults. If you’re trying to lose weight specifically, you may need to do more than this amount of exercise each day.
If you’re starting from scratch with indoor cycling, it’s important to listen to your body and go at a pace that feels comfortable for you.
As you become more accustomed to the workout, you can slowly start to increase the duration and intensity of your sessions. If 30 minutes feels like too much at first, start with shorter cycling session.
Is a stationary bike better than walking?
There is no simple answer to this question since it depends on a variety of factors, such as your fitness goals and overall physical condition. That said, let’s take a closer look at the two activities to see how they compare.
Generally speaking, biking indoor is going to be a more effective workout than walking since it requires more effort from your muscles. This means you’ll burn more calories and ultimately get in better shape faster by biking rather than walking.
However, that doesn’t mean walking isn’t good for you! Walking is still an excellent form of exercise, and has many benefits beyond just calorie burning. For instance, walking is much easier on your joints than biking, so it’s a good choice if you have bad back.
Is 30 minutes on stationary bike enough to lose weight?
It depends on how much weight you want to lose. For example, if you want to lose one pound per week, then you would need to burn 500 calories per day. So, a 30-minute ride on the stationary bike would only burn about 150 calories. To achieve your goal, you would need to ride for longer or go at a higher intensity.
It also depends on the type of stationary bike you use. If you use an upright bike or recumbent bike, you lose less weight compared to spin bikes. With a spin bike, you can lose up to 350 calories in a 30 minute workout.
How long does it take to see results from riding a stationary bike?
You should start to see some results within a month, but the best results will come after you have been following a good diet as well.
Riding a stationary bike is an excellent way to lose weight and improve your cardiovascular health, but it’s important to make sure that you are also eating healthy foods and getting enough exercise on the days that you don’t ride the bike. Good luck!
How effective is indoor cycling for weight loss?
Indoor cycling is a great way to lose weight because it’s a high-intensity cardio workout. When you do high-intensity cardio, your body starts burning stored fat for energy.
So indoor cycling is a great way to lose weight and get in shape. Spinning workout is extremely effective for weight loss when followed with a good diet.
How much indoor cycling to lose weight?
There is no Scientific or Even anecdotally definitive answer to this question. Theoretically, if you ride an indoor cycling bike at a moderate pace for 30 minutes every day, you should see some weight loss. However, everyone’s body is different and results will vary person to person.
Additionally, other factors such as intensity, diet, and general fitness level will all play a role in how much weight you lose from indoor cycling.
That being said, if your goal is to lose weight through indoor cycling, it’s probably best to ride at least 4 times per week to see results. Remember to mix up your routine with different intensities and duration to avoid stagnation and plateaus.