Most people dramatically overestimate how much exercise is required for weight loss — and underestimate how important consistency, diet, sleep, and strength training really are.
| Goal | Recommended Exercise |
|---|---|
| General fat loss | 150–300 mins/week (20-40 mins/day) |
| Faster fat loss | 300+ mins/week |
| Maintain muscle | 2–4 strength sessions/week |
| Beginners | Walking + resistance training |
| Experienced | HIIT + resistance training |
| Busy adults | 30–45 mins/day, 3-4 days/week |
For most adults, 150–300 minutes of moderate exercise per week combined with a calorie deficit is enough to produce sustainable fat loss. But the “best” amount depends on your age, body size, training history, schedule, and whether your goal is rapid weight loss or long-term maintenance.
Whether your goal is to exercise until you lose a few pounds, get stronger, gain muscle, or any other fitness goal, worry not. Here are some training tips you can use to determine how often you should exercise.
How Frequently Should You Work Out for Weight Loss?
What Worked For Me
As a busy professional, I can only dedicate so much time each day to exercising. Here is what has worked for me to maintain my strength and body composition, while making small gains (or losses) based on periodic goals.
- Workout at 6 am – get in and out in an hour
- Stick to Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri – 3-4 days a week hits everything at least twice
- Use a push/pull or upper/lower split
- Finish with 5 mins of HIIT
- Set goals for 3 months – examples: lose 15 lbs body weight, add 15 lbs to max bench
Figure Out What Could Work For You
Determining how much or how often you should exercise to lose weight largely depends on your goals and how quickly you want to see results. Ideally, you should not lose more than one to two pounds every week, but some people are after weight loss programs designed for faster weight loss. When fitness training properly, you want to exercise with frequency and consistency, but you don’t want to overtrain or make yourself too sore.
Generally, you need to burn more calories than you take in to lose a few pounds. Dieting is also a proven method of losing weight gradually. However, you need regular exercise to see consistent results. Therefore, the amount of weight you lose is dependent on how closely you adhere to your diet and the amount of activity you can commit to.
It is commonly believed that your diet is responsible for 70% of your progress, and exercise is responsible for 30%. While this is true, it is still very important to strength train while losing weight to maintain your muscle mass and metabolism. Just keep in mind it takes about 3500 calories to add or lose a pound, so you’ll ultimately need to understand the importance of your diet and food intake when trying to lose weight.
Breaking Down the Workouts
When evaluating how much exercise is required for weight loss, to start, you only need two or three days of exercise, and gradually you can work your way to five days if it works for your schedule. Ensure your workouts combine cardio, core work, stretching, and strength training.
When you lift weights, you improve your lean muscle mass, which boosts metabolism and burns calories even when you are not exercising. Cardiovascular exercises are good for your heart health, and they also burn calories, reduce stress, and boost your mood.
Cardiovascular Exercises
Ideally, you should do at least 30 minutes of moderate to high intensity cardiovascular exercise four days every week, equal to 120 minutes a week. Sometimes you can use a high-intensity BootCamp style workout or metabolic resistance training (MRT) session to count as both cardio and strength, but you still need to put in the time.
To break it down, two days of moderate activity and two days of vigorous exercise are recommended if you want to lose fat, and maintain or build muscle at the same time.
Strength Training
Ideally, you should also do at least 40 minutes of strength training three days a week, equivalent to 120 minutes per week. As mentioned before, it’s possible to get the best of both worlds if you push yourself hard and heavy with a fast-paced BootCamp style workout.
Examples of strength training workouts that work on several muscles at a time include:
- Lunges with a lateral raise.
- Deadlift with a bent-over row.
- Squats with a shoulder press.
- Pushups and planks.
Generally, you can do squats, pushups, lunges, planks, pullups, dumbbell rows, exercise ball crunches, pushup dips, bench presses, straight leg deadlifts, etc. Your goal should be to achieve at least three days every week of strength training and also incorporate full-body workouts that work on several muscles at a time.
Final Thoughts
To achieve your body fitness goals, vary your workouts in terms of intensity, do different cardio exercises in a week, such as swimming and biking, and rest at least two days a week. Also, try to do one exercise after another without resting to achieve higher calorie burn then rest after a series of activities. Finally, keep in mind that how much exercise is required for weight loss is actually up to you, depending on how well you manage your nutrition and lifestyle habits.
Tags: exercise, fat loss, lose fat, lose weight, weight loss
A lot of people think that you need to spend hours at the gym every day to lose weight, but that’s not the case. In fact, if you’re doing too much exercise, you might actually be hindering your efforts.
Exercise is an important part of any weight loss program, but it’s not the only factor that determines success. Diet is just as important and in some cases even more important than exercise. That’s because when you burn calories through exercise, you can easily make up for them by eating more later on.
That doesn’t mean you should avoid exercise altogether; it just means that you need to focus on diet as well.
This is true and I think people often believe exercise is most important. Once they shift the mindset to 30% exercise and 70% diet, the results really start to improve.