Which exercise delivers weight loss the fastest? Experts measure up walking versus running, swimming, HIIT and weights. I live by most of the health rules. I eat at least five a day, clock my fibre intake and hit a healthy protein portion.
But there are times when I want to shed a bit of weight. Like most people, the idea of enduring a rumbling stomach for weeks on end and spending hours in the gym is daunting. But it really doesn’t need to be that difficult.
To lose 450g of fat a week — a realistic starting point for healthy, sustainable weight loss — we need to be in a 500-calorie deficit a day, says Sam Quinn, a personal training lead at Nuffield Health. This is about 1500 for women and 2000 for men. One way to achieve this is to cut 250 calories (for reference, a four-finger Kit Kat is 209 calories while a Kit Kat Chunky is 263 calories) from our diet and burn a further 250 through exercise, he notes.
So how do we go about burning those 250 calories ? “My biggest piece of advice is to find what works for you and do the activities you enjoy,” Quinn advises. “There is no best form of exercise to burn calories. It’s about finding the types which are most suitable for your ability.
” But if you want to know exactly what 250 calories worth of exercise looks like, Quinn has broken it down for us. Here’s what’s typically required of popular exercises — including walking, running and swimming — to burn 250 calories..
