The real key to weight loss is consistent effort! Doing something every day that moves you closer to your goal keeps you motivated. Exercise bikes for weight loss are one of the best tools to help you achieve results. But I can hear you asking “Just how much weight can you lose on an exercise bike?“
How Much Weight Can You Lose on an Exercise Bike?
You can burn close to 600 calories in an hour on a dual action exercise bike. You can figure it takes about 3500 calories to equal one pound. By burning 500 calories a day on an exercise bike, and reducing your food intake by 500 calories a day, you could figure on losing a pound of weight in 3 1/2 days.
Using the figures above, that would be losing about 3 pounds a week, but only by pedaling for 45 minutes to an hour for 7 days, along with changing what you eat.
Exercise is a key component to weight loss, and an exercise bike is a great tool. But without a change in your diet, it takes too long to slim down. And it really doesn’t take a radical shift in your eating habits to make your workout count.
HOWEVER,
One Big Mac Meal contains about 1100 calories. Reward yourself with a large Milkyway candy bar and consume 264 calories. Stop by for a Dairy Queen Blizzard and inhale from 500 -1000 calories. What about a cup of mac and cheese with dinner? About 360!
Get the point?
How much weight can you lose on an exercise bike quickly becomes a moot point without changing some eating habits.
Ok, now that we have that straight, let’s talk about stationary bikes and losing weight.
Why Exercise Bikes are Great for Losing Weight
When you want to lose weight, you are typically going to have to do some form of exercise in order to burn the extra fat off your body. It’s something that’s important for your weight loss, looking good, and long-term health.
One of the best workouts you can get is with an exercise bike. In fact, stationary bikes for exercise offer a wide range of advantages such as:
- Burning a lot of calories with a single workout
- Getting a full body workout with an exercise bike with arm movement
- Home workout bikes make losing weight easy and convenient
- Watch TV or even read a book while burning calories
5 Benefits of Using Exercise Bikes for Losing Weight
1. Stationary Exercise Bikes are Easy on the Joints
Stationary bikes are always easy on your joints, which can be important for a lot of people, especially overweight people.
The fact is that the majority of overweight people wind up with joint pain. So, it just makes sense that using exercise equipment that takes the weight off your knees is the best option.
2. Riding a Bike is Familiar
Most of us are already familiar with riding a bike. Of course, you don’t have to balance a stationary bike, but riding it for exercise doesn’t take much of a learning curve.
Already knowing what to do with the pedals is an advantage over some other types of cardio equipment. Just start pushing the pedals and burning calories.
3. Losing Weight on an Exercise Bike is Easier
Exercise bikes challenge your leg muscles, which are the biggest muscles of your body. That’s important because the larger the muscles used; the more calories burned.
Adding moveable arms that work in unison with your pedaling gives you the added advantage of using your entire upper body. By combining both upper and lower body into one workout, you burn even more calories for weight loss.
4. Exercise Bikes Keep You Safe and Comfortable
Most people find pedaling a stationary bike more comfortable than other cardio workouts simply because you are seated on a cushy seat. They’re stable so that you never need worry about having an accident riding, getting on, or off.
Recumbent exercise bikes don’t burn as many calories, but are even more comfortable and easier to use. You’ll seat in a much larger seat with your legs in front of you, rather than under you as you pedal.
5. A Great Exercise Workout
The exercise bike is an old faithful in the exercise equipment field. Weird exercise machines have come and gone out of fashion but the exercise bike is still a proven machine to build fitness and burn calories for losing weight.
For overall fitness you need exercise for heart fitness, muscle building and flexibility. Your exercise bike can be a key part in your overall program. Especially during wet or cold weather the exercise bike is useful every day and at any time
Burning Calories on an Exercise Bike
If like mine your bike has a heart monitor built in then the key for weight loss, is slow steady burn. If you exercise in your fat burning zone; that is 60-70% of your max heart rate you will burn plenty of calories.
When you get your body in a caloric deficit, the majority of energy used is provided by converting fat from your body. Exercising at this lower intensity, shouldn’t leave you in a pool of sweat or with sore legs.
If you don’t have a heart rate monitor on your bike, check out these simple monitors you wear on your wrist. You should always work out at a level that you can still talk fairly easily, but beginning to breath at a higher rate.
Follow the simple pattern of 3-5mins warm up below 60% MHR (Max Heart Rate). Next, move your heart rate up to 60-70% MHR for 20 mins followed by a cool down again less than 60% MHR for a further 5 mins.
The key to this exercise is that it is fairly easy so that you can do it often. As a matter of fact, it is not too strenuous to do every day and the entire workout takes about 25-30 minutes.
If Your Exercise Bike Doesn’t Have Moveable Arms
If your bike isn’t a dual action bike, you can increase the work load which will increase the calories used by adding light hand weights (dumbbells).
Try getting a couple of light hand weights, do some curls or shoulder lifts at the same time you’re pedaling. This is a time when multi-tasking really does work.
Your bike should be your friend – this will make getting on to it on a regular basis a lot easier. In any weight loss plan, consistency is the key; don’t try to do it all at once.
Hopping on one of these home exercise bikes and pedaling for hours might seem like a good idea, but your legs won’t thank you the following day, and you’ll be put off of exercise for good.
In order to establish a workout plan that will really help you lose weight, take it nice and slowly, and incorporate your new exercise bicycle into your life in a way that will last.
Getting Started
The important thing is to get started. Start gently to begin with and after a week or two you will feel your fitness levels improve.
You need to introduce your body into the exercise for the first couple of days, for many people buying exercise bikes makes the first time they have exercised in years.
The first few days should be intentionally slow to allow yourself you get in the swing of things. Going flat out will inevitably lead to sore muscles and will put you off. Start slow and build up. Remember it is a marathon not a sprint.
How Long to Ride an Exercise Bike to Lose Weight?
It’s a sad fact that most people cannot find the time to exercise yet can easily sit and watch TV for that or longer. Why not combine the two, TV and exercise? Watching your favorite soap or movie while riding your bike cuts down on the boredom factor too.
30 minutes a day pedaling an exercise bike can burn as many as 300 calories. However, you will also be increasing your resting metabolic rate. That means your body will burn calories and fat for hours after your workout.
Combine that with a healthy low-calorie diet and you will easily lose weight with and exercise bike.
Best Exercise Bike Workout to Lose Weight
The best workout to burn calories and get to those stored fat cells will elevate your heart rate from 50-70% of maximum, depending on your fitness level.
Then you should maintain that rate at least for 15 minutes and longer is better.
Exercise Bikes Elevate Your Heart Rate.
Your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age.
Rather than just pedaling away at an even pace for a half hour, try interval training by mixing up the pace of your exercise bike workout to make it more challenging and interesting. Try this variation:
3 minutes easy warm-up pedaling
2 minutes moderate
1 minute fast
2 minutes moderate
1 minute fast
1 minute moderate
30 seconds fast
1 minute moderate
30 seconds fast
2 minutes moderate
1 minute fast
2 minutes moderate
3 minutes slow
Bet that’s not boring!
What Exercise Bikes are Available
There are huge range of exercise bikes, they come in all kind of styles from the basic stationary bike to ones with built in exercise programs for spinning and mountain courses.
The best is what you can afford to pay, the important thing is that you use it and use it often.
Bikes range from around $80 upwards and generally use either various levels or wind resistance to increase the required effort as you get fitter. I have to say if you can afford it, you will find exercise bikes that have pre tuned exercise programs that are easy to follow and are a great way to burn fat.
The best is what you can afford to pay and the important thing is that you use it and use it often.
Which is Best Bike or Treadmill?
If you are new to exercising then the treadmill may be just too much. If you are overweight then the added impact of running or walking on the treadmill can cause more aches and pains.
Certainly, the best place to start on the road to losing weight is the exercise bike.
They are low impact and give a great cardio workout for burning a lot of calories. As your fitness level progresses and you increase the resistance on the bike you will burn more calories in less time and gain a good strength training workout.
As you run on a treadmill you put a lot more load on your knees and ankles, if you are new to exercise this can cause damage to your joints. The better option would be a dual action exercise bike you can get an upper body workout, giving and all-round workout.
Personally, I would choice an exercise bike over the treadmill as it gives a very good all-round workout. Treadmills are also much larger than an exercise bike, if space is at a premium then I would choice an exercise bike.
Summary
It’s that caloric deficit that is absolutely necessary for weight loss, and an exercise bike can burn close to 600 calories in an hour. By combining burning 500-600 calories with eating less calories in a day, it’s much easier to reach your weight loss goals.
There’s no shortage of home cardio equipment to help you lose weight, and they all work to one degree or another. When it comes to choosing the best bike, there’s a wide range of features and prices.
Some bikes come equipped with reading racks that hold a book or laptop while you’re pedaling. You may want to look for a model that has a built-in heart rate monitor, use a watch or other device with a heart rate monitor, or purchase one for your bike as an add on.
The end goal of all them is to provide you with a means to do cardio aerobic exercise. These aerobic exercises will increase your heart and breathing rate which is an excellent, in fact, probably the best way to burn a lot of calories both while exercising and at rest.
A lot of stationary exercise bikes allow you to get a total body workout in a matter of minutes.
Increase or decrease the resistance settings on some or the speed on others to increase or decrease workout intensity. Of course, that intensity is what determines the number of calories burned during your exercise routine.
With dual action bikes, you can use:
- Only your legs and lower body to pedal
- Legs and arms to exercise both upper and lower body
- Only arms for an upper body workout
How Much Weight Can You Lose on an Exercise Bike? As it turns out, it’s hard to beat these devices for burning calories and losing weight. In fact, any stationary workout bike goes a long way toward helping you create a caloric deficit.