Traditionally, people have associated weight loss and better health with cardiovascular exercises such as brisk walking, jogging, running or cycling. That thinking is not wrong, but what people tend to do is settle down into a routine that they insist on practicing every day, such as a 30-minute jog. That is where things go wrong. So find out the right way to do cardiovascular exercises, in order to lose weight fast.

Strategy 1: Interval Training

As suggested above, the human body is amazingly adaptable. If you subject it to a routine long enough, it will become very efficient at it, and will do it with progressively less effort. What this means is that you are no longer burning too many calories on your daily jog or spurring your fitness. As a result, you may have stagnated in your weight loss goals too. What you need is to discard your routine and exploit the amazing benefits of interval training.

Faster Weight Loss in Less Time

It may sound complex, but the concept of interval training is essentially very simple. It refers to any cardiovascular exercise, where one alternates between short bursts of relatively fast activity and periods of light intensity or rest. So, if you punctuate your jog with a faster 30 second run every 2 minutes, that is interval training. Do eight such sets of 2 minutes jog + 30 second run, and in just 20 minutes you will have spurred your metabolism and fitness a lot more than during your usual jog. The direct result is faster weight loss. According to a study, if people who do light intensity, long-duration cardiovascular workouts switch to interval training, they can achieve their weight loss goals by cutting their total exercise time to less than half.

Interval training 101

Interval training may involve either an increase in speed/intensity or an increase in resistance for a pre-set duration, and it can be done with any cardiovascular exercise, whether it is running, skipping, cycling or swimming. Besides, it can involve dozens of variations. On the whole, it is far less monotonous and more enjoyable than low-intensity, constant cardio, and prevents the body from adapting and then stagnating. As your fitness improves, you can make your intervals longer or more challenging and reduce the period of rest and recovery between intervals. Even 20 minutes of interval training, 3-4 times a week, will end up being incomparably more effective for fast weight loss than a constant daily effort.

Strategy 2: Varying your Exercise

Apart from interval training, the other strategy to spur your fitness and get slim faster is to vary your cardiovascular exercise itself. So, if you are running or jogging 5 days a week, try and replace it with cycling or swimming for 1-2 of those days. This will engage and develop new and different muscle groups, and as a result, your metabolism will get a boost. This directly translates into faster weight loss. Besides, since the exercise is new and more challenging, your body will burn more calories during the workout itself.

If you apply these strategies, you will undoubtedly lose weight fast. All it takes is a few weeks, and you will be smiling at the mirror!

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