With all due regard to the importance of body positivity, it’s simply a fact that being slim is healthier than being fat. So, if you’ve finally made the decision to get in shape (and assuming this isn’t just a New Year’s resolution you’ll have forgotten about by Valentine’s Day), we at Body Muscle Matters salute you!
Okay, so you’re probably level-headed enough to know that the mirror won’t suddenly love you after you’ve done two or three workouts to lose weight. Yet, once some time has gone by and you’ve put in a lot of effort for zero visible gains, you may well start wondering if you’re using the right gym machines to lose weight.
What kind of exercises do you need to do in order to burn fat as fast as possible? Which gym machines are most effective at trimming off the pounds? Let’s break this issue down for you, starting with the basics.
Top Tips: How to Lose Weight Fast When You Haven’t Exercised for a While
There seem to be two kinds of recent gym members: those who don’t want any advice because they skimmed an article in Men’s Health back in 2013, and those who are apparently pursuing a graduate degree in biomechanics. Whichever type you identify with, let’s not overlook the true fundamentals of any attempt to lose weight:
Start Slow
Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, why do you think gyms that are crowded during January are practically deserted by March? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because people’s fitness goals have all been achieved in that short a span of time, nor is it the case that they’ve decided that being chubby is actually just the look for them.
In far too many cases, people start working out with admirable motivation, try to do too much, get sore and fed up, and then just balk at the idea of ever looking at a dumbbell rack or rowing machine ever again. To avoid this pitfall, be realistic: exercise at whatever level is comfortable and sustainable for you, and make sure to plan plenty of rest between gym days.
Have a Schedule (and Stick To It!)
Those guys and girls with abs Apollo would envy? Half of them aren’t natural athletes, very few of them use steroids or other harmful weight-loss gimmicks, and some of them are even partial to the occasional full-fat ice cream. Many of them don’t even get up at 5 a.m. sharp to do roadwork or bench presses.
What almost all of them have in common, though, is that they rarely skip a day or spend their workout time at the gym’s smoothie bar instead of on its machines. The only real secret to weight loss is dedication and consistent effort. Giving in to lethargy “just this once” means you’re that much more likely to make it a habit, so just never submit to this universal temptation to begin with.
Measure the Right Things
Even before you start figuring out what machines to use at the gym to lose weight, make up your mind as to what you want to achieve. In fact, now might be a good time to lock your bathroom scale in a closet and forget about it for a few months!
You see: “looking good in a swimsuit” is not the same thing as “losing weight”. You can do the latter by crash-dieting without doing any exercise at all, but this isn’t easy or healthy. It’s far better to focus on fitness and performance first, letting your weight worry about itself for now.
If you choose to get in shape by exercising, you will generally build and tone muscle at the same time as you lose fat. Now, muscle is about 20% denser than fat, meaning that it’s less bulky. If the fat you used to have around your middle turns into muscle on your arms and legs, your waist will shrink noticeably even though you may weigh the same.
In addition, improved muscle definition makes you look more trim even if you haven’t yet achieved your weight loss goals. In other words, if two people of the same height and weight stand side by side, the one with more muscle mass will seem significantly leaner and fitter. What the scale tells you doesn’t matter in this regard.
Don’t Neglect Diet
While counting calories by itself isn’t a feasible way to lose weight, neither should you scarf down a dozen doughnuts before and after every workout. This may seem obvious, but beware: starting to exercise, or increasing the intensity of your routine, causes overwhelming cravings for tureens full of steaming pasta, dinosaur-sized rare steaks, brownies the size of car batteries…and those are just what I’m pining for right now!
There’s already plenty of good advice on this subject; there’s no reason for me to repeat any of it here. For now, just remember to drink enough water, cut down on sugar and refined carbs, and not “eat your gains” and end up more or less where you started.
Cardio Versus Strength: What Machines to Use at the Gym to Lose Weight
Somehow, everybody you meet has an opinion on this issue. For some reason, it always happens to involve praising their favorite form of exercise. This is one of those times when we have to be mindful of the logical fallacy called survivorship bias: talking to people who have succeeded at getting toned doesn’t necessarily give you the best idea of which workouts to lose weight will work best for you.
Arguably, any kind of diligent exercise is going to benefit you and help you shed pounds if you keep at it long enough. However, it also seems to be the case that some people are natural runners while a lucky few seem to build muscle just by breathing!
There are two main schools of thought on which is the best kind of workout to help you lose weight. Neither is exactly wrong, and both make some good points; however, neither really provides the whole answer.
Is Cardio Better for Weight Loss?
Cardio, or aerobic, exercises refer to those where the focus is on raising your pulse rather than taxing your muscles. Cycling, running, swimming, etc. have long been seen as some of the best workouts for losing weight. The main argument for this view rests on the balance between the calories you eat and the calories you sweat out.
Instant Calorie Burn
The basic theory goes like this: energy, as physics tells us, can’t be created or destroyed. The power you gain from the food you eat has to either:
- Be used up during your body’s normal maintenance and repair processes.
- Get burned off during exercise, or
- Be stored as fat.
Because cardio workouts are specifically designed to convert as much possible of your body’s energy to movement, you end up on the right side of the equation and enter a calorie deficit. Put simply, your body starts to burn fat and you lose weight.
Long-Term Metabolic Boost
As a bonus, your body continues to consume calories at a higher rate even once you’re done exercising for the day. For several hours afterward, your basal metabolic rate (BMR, or how much energy is consumed even when you’re resting) remains elevated.
Your body also starts becoming more efficient. As you lose fat and start building lean tissue, your hormonal balance changes. This not only improves your mood and energy levels; you’ll also be burning more fat than usual even if you skip a few workouts.
Cardio Gym Machines to Use to Lose Weight:
You are basically spoiled for choice when it comes to fat-burning cardio workouts. Many machines you’ll find in the gym are basically imitations of exercises you can also perform in the fresh air:
- Treadmill: Great for warming up or pre-programming an interval run.
- Elliptical trainer: Not as natural a motion as you perform on a treadmill, but easier on the knees and with adjustable resistance settings.
- Stationary bicycle: Somewhat boring, but significantly less so with the right VR headset (plus, most let you track your progress on a phone app).
- Rowing machine: Less engaging than doing the same thing outdoors, but much less dependent on weather (my usual excuse) and a great cardio workout for your whole upper body.
- Stairmaster: The modern version of a punishment used in Victorian prisons—enough said!
Can Resistance Workouts Help You Lose Weight Fast?
If you want to shed a few excess pounds, cardio is a great way to start. As time goes on, though, your body adapts to this kind of exercise, just like it adjusts to any kind of workout. At that point, the only way to increase the amount of weight you can lose is to intensify or extend each workout.
Turning Fat Into Muscle
Strength training is a horse of another color. During cardio, most muscles are near-constantly engaged for a long period. When using weights or resistance machines at the gym, though, it’s common to take a rest whenever you need to, or at least switch to working on another muscle group.
Since any given part of your body may only be exercising for ten minutes out of an hour-long gym session, strength training consumes a lot less energy at the time than cardio does. There’s a trick to this, though: building and strengthening those sore muscles consume a significant amount of calories – anything from 2,000 to 2,800 for each pound of new lean tissue you add on.
The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Even if burning fat is a priority over gaining muscle, strength training has a major advantage. More muscle mass automatically translates to a higher metabolic rate; though this works slightly differently from the way in which cardio transforms your body, the results are much the same. This makes it easier to keep the fat off even after you scale back the frequency and intensity of your workouts.
Strength Machines to Use to Lose Weight:
All the following exercises, plus many more, can be done using free weights. This, however, requires concentration and proper form to keep from hurting yourself and setting your progress back by weeks. If you’re new to the gym and only want to lose some weight, try these four:
- Chest press machine: Works your pectorals, deltoids, and triceps – almost all the muscle groups you need to develop if you want a well-defined upper body.
- Lat pulldown machine: Exercises your lats (latissimus dorsi), biceps, and upper back muscles—this will automatically improve your day-to-day posture.
- Leg press machine: Simulating the motion of a squat, this machine helps you tone your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes.
- Leg curl machine: Though opinions vary, most trainers agree that working on all parts of the body simultaneously is the best way to lose weight by building muscle. So, don’t forget about your legs, including the hamstrings this machine exercises.
Final Thoughts – Are Gym Machines A Good Workout?
Though a resistance workout plan may seem like the answer to all your weight loss prayers, this approach does have one pretty serious drawback: muscles don’t recover or bulk up overnight. In fact, it takes a good long while, and trying to train a muscle that hasn’t had time to heal from the last session is only an invitation to injury.
The good news is that there’s no rule saying that you must specialize (unless you’re determined to become a competitive bodybuilder or ultramarathon runner). Cardio is better for weight loss in the short term, but strength training will help you hang onto and make the most of those fitness gains.
In fact, both kinds of exercise support the other in multiple ways, improving your physical ability, endurance, mental and emotional balance, and general health. So, by all means: strap yourself to a rowing machine or use resistance machines at a lower setting and do a lot of reps fast, simulating aerobic exercise while also giving your muscles a workout. Alternatively, you can mix up cardio and strength training, doing each on different days.
Whatever approach you choose, remember there is absolutely no safe, sustainable shortcut to losing weight and getting toned. However, every drop of sweat and every sacrifice you make most certainly has an effect. Using the right kinds of gym machines helps, but there’s no substitute for willpower and persistence!
