How Many Miles Should You Ride on a Stationary Bike for Effective Weight Loss?

Riding a stationary bike is definitely an excellent method for losing weight. You will not only shed pounds, but increase your metabolic rate, and you will be giving your body a good cardiovascular workout. How much you should ride your stationary bike, and how many miles you should cover while on the bike, make a big difference in how successful your weight loss efforts are.

Start Out Slow

Don't jump on a stationary bike and think that you will conquer a mile a day, particularly if you haven't been exercising in a while. Start your workout regimen slowly, and gradually increase the time you spend on the bike. If you are going to track the miles you cover, start riding a stationary bike for a quarter-mile three times a week for the first week. If you are comfortable, and you are not feeling muscular strain or pain, the following week you can up your mileage to mile a day, three days a week. Once you can comfortably perform mile without tiring, then up your mileage to 3/4 of a mile. Keep increasing the distance as you progress.

Your Body Adjusts

Not only do you physically adjust to the exertion of riding a stationary bike for great distance, but your calorie burning will level out, too. When you first start out riding the stationary bike, you will find that you end up burning more calories than when you perform your exercises later on; this is why the gradual increase in the miles you cover is necessary. By slowly increasing the distance you cover, you can make sure that your body adjusts to the exertion without pain or strain, and you can also keep your calorie burning at peak performance since you will continually add distance to your workout on a week-to-week basis.
The number of miles you cover on your stationary bike is ultimately defined by your physical abilities. If you find yourself continuously comfortable with gradual increases in miles, you can ride the bike for as many as 10 miles or more. It is imperative that you begin the process gradually, however, to reduce physical injury, especially if you are not accustomed to riding bikes for great distances.

Calories-Burned Calculators

To determine how many calories you are likely to burn while on a stationary bike, you can use a calories-burned calculator. Calories-burned calculators will vary, but often require you to select the activity in question and to include your workout time and weight. The calculator will then tell you how many calories you will burn riding a stationary bike. For instance, if you ride at a moderate pace for 30 minutes and you weigh 150 pounds, you will burn off 239 calories for every 30-minute session on the stationary bike. If you do this exercise three times a week, you will burn off a total of 717 calories weekly. Since it takes 3500 calories to lose a pound, you will need to combine your stationary bike efforts with a lower caloric intake that is right for you and your weight loss needs in order to lose a pound per week.