One fun way to lose weight is to bike for exercise. Taking your bike for a spin around the neighborhood or even on a bike trail will burn calories, improve stamina, and allow you to enjoy the fresh air and scenery.
Set a Clear, Measurable Goal
According to the Mayo Clinic, you can set yourself up for success by making weight loss goals. Begin by setting a clearly-stated and empirically-defined goal. Decide exactly how much weight you want to lose and when you want to lose it. In other words, state the number of pounds and a calendar date. If you don’t achieve your goal weight by your desired date, then simply set a new date. The idea of having a deadline is simply to motivate you.
Create a Scheduled Routine
There are three ways to build riding into your weekly schedule.
The first way is to schedule a daily ride before or after work. An hour will give you plenty of exercise. If you ride at a moderate speed, which is about 14 miles per hour, you will burn as much as 470 calories an hour.
The second way is to ride to and from work. Naturally, this might not be possible if you have an executive job and must show up for work looking clean and fresh, well-dressed, and impeccably groomed.
The third way is to ride only on your days off but do it for several hours.
Any one of these schedules, coupled with a healthy diet, will allow you to lose at least a pound a week.
If possible ride with a friend. Even if you can only do this occasionally, this will make riding more enjoyable.
Try an Elliptical Bike
While bike riding will help you lose weight, you can up the ante by getting a Street Strider. This is an outdoor three wheeled bike that works like an elliptical machine. Due to its unusual design, it can give you a full-body, aerobic workout. You will exercise your upper body by pulling and pushing on the handlebars to exercise your arms, shoulders, chest, and back muscles. At the same time, you will also exercise your lower body, working your abdominals, oblique muscles, hips, lower back, buttocks, and thighs.
Eat A Healthy Diet
While regular bike riding, either with a regular bike or an elliptical one, will help you lose weight, you will get even better and faster results if you take supplements and eat a healthy diet.
For supplements, dieters have had excellent results with a vitamin-mineral complex; Garcinia Cambogia extract, a supplement recommended by Dr. Oz that converts fat from foods into energy, and a high-protein meal-replacement shake for an extra energy boost.
For diet, focus on eating large portions of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, and small portions of complex carbohydrates and protein foods. Also, stay well-hydrated, drinking from 6 to 10 glasses of water a day.
Don’t Forget the Fun Factor
Finally, you should make the whole process of dieting and exercising fun. If you don’t build fun into your plan, you will begin with lukewarm enthusiasm then quit at the smallest excuse. Even if–through sheer grit and determination–you do succeed in losing weight, you will feel so deprived by the end of your deadline that you will probably gain it all back again.
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