Can You Lose Weight With Kettlebells?

Whether you wish to lose weight, gain muscle mass or maintain your physical fitness, kettlebells help you a great deal. Kettlebells are versatile at helping you lose weight.

Whether you wish to lose weight, gain muscle mass or maintain your physical fitness, kettlebells help you a great deal. These hanging weights occupy a little space and are thus suitable for home-workouts as well. If you are planning to lose weight, remember that exercise alone won't help you attain your fitness goal. Calorie-restriction is important as well. Studies suggest that it takes 3,500 calories to make a pound of fat in your body. Hence, for effective and sustainable weight loss, you need to burn more calories than what you consume throughout the day. The amount of calories you burn each day is called your total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE. Using kettlebells, you can perform various exercises that help burn a significant amount of calories. Besides, you also build muscle mass that further stimulates your metabolism to help you burn calories even when you are not working out. You can burn as many as 400 calories in 20 minutes by performing exercises using kettlebells. The number of calories burned depends on several factors, such as

• Your body weight (the more you weigh, the more calories you are likely to burn)
• Weight of the kettlebells used (you burn more calories using a heavier kettlebell)
• Number of repetitions performed
• Workout speed (number of repetitions per minute)
• Your age (younger people tend to burn more calories)
• Your lean muscle mass
• Your metabolic rate
• The correctness of your form

Kettlebells are versatile at helping you lose weight. This simple equipment can help you attain your fitness goals faster due to several reasons. These include

• Kettlebell workouts engage several muscles at a time.
• They activate more muscle groups than most traditional workouts. Hence, they simultaneously work your back, chest, core, thighs and arms.
• This helps burn a lot of calories in a short time. Kettlebell workouts are said to increase your post-exercise oxygen consumption. This is greater than most workouts and enables you to burn calories even when you are finished working out.
• Kettlebell workouts help build muscle mass to a greater extent than cardio exercises, such as running. Running also has a risk of muscle breakdown, which is minimal with kettlebell workouts.
• Kettlebell workouts help you burn as much as 20 calories per minute. This is higher than most traditional forms of exercise, including running (10 to 13 calories burned per minute), resistance training (5.5 to 8 calories burned per minute) and swimming (5.5 to 9.5 calories burned per minute).

Hence, with proper diet and kettlebell workouts, you can drop those extra pounds faster than with most traditional workouts. Kettlebell workouts are regarded as functional workouts. This means they build fitness that helps you perform better in your routine activities as well. Apart from slimming your waist and shaping your body, kettlebell workouts build endurance and muscle strength. This makes you energized. You do not become tired as easily as you used to. You even sleep better when you  improve your fitness levels. Good sleep and adequate rest decrease stress hormones, such as cortisol. This also contributes to weight loss. Follow the advice of a personal trainer so that you perform your workouts using the correct form. This minimizes the risk of injuries while maximizing weight loss benefits. Your fitness trainer will also help you choose a kettlebell with the correct weight for your goals. If you have any health conditions, back pain and spine problems or if you are pregnant, it is better to avoid any kind of weight training. However, consult with your doctor before starting any new workout or diet plan.