Elliptical Cardio Fitness - Can You Lose Weight With An Elliptical?
When you use an elliptical, cardio fitness improves. But can you also lose weight with elliptical workouts?
Well, ellipticals haven't become the most popular cardio machine at the gym for nothing! Not only can you improve your overall cardiovascular health parameters, you can use it to get your heart rate up even when doing a light workout, and effectively lose weight. And the best part is, you can do it all without putting any strain on your back, hips, knees or ankles.
Elliptical trainers are ideas fitness machines. Why? Because you get a good cardio workout, and you burn calories at the same time. Because the elliptical motion is low impact, especially compared to jogging or running on a hard surface like a treadmill, you can use an elliptical even if you have joint issues or pain.
So how do ellipticals help you lose weight? For one, the console allows you to track how many calories you've burned during your workout. It does this by using a calorie burn measurement called a metabolic equivalent (MET). MET is the measurement of how many calories people of various weights burn during sleep. A person weighing 130 pounds, for example, burns around 60 calories per hour while they are sleeping.
Your elliptical will calculate your estimated calories burned based on your current weight against a standard MET value. It comes programmed with a set of standard values of calories burned at different intensities of exercise. If you can input your weight, then the machine will determine your basal metabolic rate (BMI) and multiply that by your MET to see how many calories you are burning per hour. You'll know with fairly good accuracy how much energy you have burned during your workout... and as you lose weight, you simply enter your new weight so the machine can calculate your new level of calorie and fat burning.
Of course, you can't just hop on your elliptical and expect to lose weight if your diet isn't dialed in as well. As you already know, diet and exercise work together for weight loss. What you elliptical will tell you is how effectively you are working out. Are you working out intensively enough to lose weight? Are you in your fat burning zone? Your elliptical can guide you.
Of course, you can use one of the many training programs that your elliptical has to shake things up, and get more out of your workouts. You can alternate between high and low intensity days, change the incline, or try different speed trials and heart rate targets. Losing weight with an elliptical never has to be boring! With an elliptical, cardio fitness and a trimmer tummy come hand in hand.
