How To Exercise For Weight Loss At Home?

Many of us know how important daily exercise is, but we tend to find it hard to fit in the time to go to the gym, or we lose motivation to go running, which can lead us to pack on the pounds, especially after lockdown. 

But did you know you can do a huge range of bodyweight workouts at home to help you lose weight and even increase strength? These can consist of jumping exercises, arm-strengthening exercises and full-body workout routines all from the comfort of your living room.

If you have tried to lose weight at home before, you probably know finding the right exercises and nutrition to eat can be overwhelming, so to make things simpler for you, we have put together a short guide below with all the workout moves you need, tips for losing weight at home and how to do it!

Let’s get moving!

How To Lose Weight At Home With Exercise? 

Before we get into all the different workout moves and workout routine to do at home, we first need to address how to lose weight at home, as although implementing a cardio workout or workout moves each day can help, other factors can affect your weight loss. 

To lose weight at home you must be eating fewer calories than your maintenance needs each day to use your body’s fat as energy stores, this calorie deficit as we call it can be achieved through calorie/macro counting and exercise as well as NEAT (the activity you do naturally each day e.g. cleaning). 

We have listed the three main points to losing weight at home down below which should be taken into account with bodyweight exercises that we will list down below. 

• Find your maintenance calories – Understanding how many calories you need to eat per day to maintain your weight is important, this can be done by working out your macros and BMR rate online.
• Understand your weekly goal calories – Once you know how many calories you need to eat per day you can cut back a per cent according to your goal of weight loss and how fast you want to lose weight.
• Track your meals (with the food you like) – Meal planning and preparing healthy meals in advance to have in your fridge at home is one of the best ways to lose weight, this stops your ordering a takeaway when you are tired or reaching for junk food when you need a snack, just make sure some of the foods are foods that you like, otherwise, you will feel deprived.
• Be consistent – Weight loss will not happen overnight, no matter if you eat healthily and exercise one day then do nothing the next, consistency is key and so is keeping yourself accountable. Keep track of your weight loss to motivate yourself and do not give up!

Best Kinds Of Exercise For Losing Weight At Home 

Okay, now the boring part is out the way, we can get into looking at some simple exercises you can do at home to help you lose weight easily. 

To make our beginner exercises a little less overwhelming, we have split them into lower and upper as well as core and cardio. Remember you would need to do these exercises in reps and sets to make them into a challenging version, and always warm up beforehand. 

Core Exercise 

Building core strength through abs workout at home is one of the easiest things to do and can help you tone and shred abdominal fat in the long run. 

• Plank position – Put your toes and elbows on the floor and keep your back straight with your core engaged, try and hold the position for one minute or until failure.
• Abdominal crunches – These gets your abdominal muscles fired up quickly, try two sets of 30 as a beginner with bite-sized versions.
• Sit-ups – Aim for at least 15 as a beginner, keep your feet flat and neck neutral, increase reps to make it an advanced version.
• Classic bicycle motion – Keep your lower-back muscles on the floor, feet bent in the air then perform a cycling motion with your hands on your head, try to meet each knee with your upper body in a small crunch, aim for 30 seconds.

Cardio Exercises 

There are many great cardio advanced exercises out there to try, from dancing to 20 minute HIIT workouts, but we have listed some simple ones to try at home with a timer down below.

• Jumping jacks – This one is pretty simple, keep jumping with your hands over your head for at least one minute to get your heart rate up.
• Burpees – These start in a plank position as a starting position then you jump up in the air and repeat, these explosive exercises are great for burning fat quickly and you can even integrate a standard pushup when planking to make it an advanced version.
• Lower Body Exercises 
• Whether you want to lose weight or build muscle strength, there is a great range of lower body exercises to try that can get your legs and glutes burning at home, these can help tone up your lower body too. 
• Squats – Keep your foot positions turned out and your back straight then lower your body into a seating position till you meet your knees, try two sets of ten and remember to squeeze at the top!
• Squat jumps – Extend your knees down as if you are doing a squat then spring off the floor and land back in your squat position again, these get your heart rate up and burn your lower body muscles, so aim for as many sets until failure.
• Lunges – To perform a lunge simple extend one leg over the other landing with your knee over your toes then allow your other leg to lower and bend to the floor, push back off your leg and repeat on the other side.
• Calf raises – These exercises are so simple but effective, a simple rise on your toes up and down to activate your calf muscles. 
• Bavarian split squats – Simply perform your normal squat but have one of your feet rested on a low table behind.

Upper Body Exercises

It is possible to work your upper body at home without going to the gym which can help you tone up and lose weight. We have listed our simple effective upper body exercises to try below. 

• Pushup position – Simple but great for building strength at home, try knee-push ups first for support if you are a beginner and find these overwhelming.
• Bench dips – Try two sets of 15 reps for these, find a hard chair and move your bum away from the seat until your whole weight is supported by your hands, extend up and down to burn your triceps.
• One-arm rows – Use any weight for this one, water bottles, a bag of groceries, rice, bend over in a 45-degree angle position and row your arm up and down squeezing at the top to work out your back muscles.

Our Workout Routine Options To Try At Home 

Now we know some of the best and simplest exercises you can perform at home to lose weight, you might be asking yourself, how do I put these all together to make a workout routine? 

Well, don’t worry, we have listed a few example workouts to try out in your living room below to get you started. 

Our Beginner Bodyweight Workout 

This workout is great for people who are just getting into working out at home, we recommend you try to do three sets of this workout below. 

• Squats – 20 reps.
• Push ups – 10 reps. 
• Walking lunges – 12 on each leg.
• Dumbell rows (you can use bottles) – 10 on each arm.
• Jumping jacks – 30 reps. 
• Plank – Hold for 30-seconds. 

Our Advanced Bodyweight Workout 

For people who are a little more advanced in their fitness, you might want to try our advanced version of our home body workout below to see the results. Warm-up first and repeat the whole set three times.

• One legged squats – 10 each side. 
• Normal squats – 25 reps. 
• Walking lunges – 10 each side. 
• Dips – 20 reps. 
• Push-ups – 20 reps. 
• Plank – 1 minute.

Our 20 minute HIIT Workout 

To make this 20-minute workout for the fat burn at home more simple, we simply ask you to repeat as many sets as you can that we will give below in the 20-minute time frame with a 30-second rest in between each exercise. 

• 15 squat jumps. 
• 15 jumping jacks. 
• 30 mountain climbers. 
• 20 burpees. 
• 20 high knees (10 on each leg).

Final Words 

Overall, losing weight at home with simple exercises that we have listed above doesn’t have to be hard, you can either create your workouts with the single exercises we listed or follow put together routines such as the three above. 

Always remember if you want to see weight loss results you must be eating healthy in a calorie deficit too and be consistent with your meals hitting your calorie goal to see results.