Looking to Lose Weight? Choose These Workouts and Protein Shakes

Losing weight is a combination of creating a protein-heavy, low-calorie diet and targeting areas with excess fat during workouts. In order to lose weight successfully, you need to burn more calories than you take in, but you don’t want to sacrifice healthy foods with necessary nutrients and minerals.

Adding a protein shake to your diet is a good way to satiate your hunger, fuel your body with protein and lower your calorie intake. Having your own protein shaker bottle to bring to work or the gym is an easy way to drink these healthy shakes on the go. Try some of these workouts in combination with your shakes to focus on losing weight.

1. Cardio Exercises

Cardio is an important aspect of any workout routine but when trying to lose weight, this is one of the most effective ways to drop pounds. Switching up the type of cardio exercises you do will reduce stress on your joints and keep your cardio routine fresh. The most common type of cardio people do to lose weight is running. Whether you prefer jogging on the treadmill or around your neighborhood, running increases your endurance and works your entire body—core, legs and arms.

Depending on your physical fitness level, you can start slowly with just running a mile three to five times per week. As this becomes easier, you can bump up your workout to two or even three miles each time you run, attempting to get faster over time as well.

While running is a great cardio exercise and can help you shed those first few pounds, it’s very taxing on your body, particularly your knees and shins. To avoid these issues, try running on grass or something softer than concrete. Or, switch up your cardio routine and add in cycling. If you own a bike, you can enjoy this rewarding activity outside. Cycling also works both your upper body, lower body and core while putting less stress on your knees and joints.

Many people like to start their workout with a run or cycling activity before moving on to specific workout circuits. Another cardio exercise you can work into your circuit is jumping rope. This activity is great for burning calories quickly and strengthening your entire body.

2. High-Intensity Interval Training

High-intensity interval training, sometimes simply called HIIT, is one of the top workouts for losing weight though more intense than most programs as the name implies. With HIIT, your body temperature spikes more quickly than during regular workout circuits, which causes your body to continue burning calories after you’ve completed your exercises. HIIT is great for both those looking to drop weight and people with busy schedules because many of the workouts last for just 20 to 30 minutes.

To start practicing HIIT, you can find dozens of sample workouts or create your own with your favorite exercises. Targeting the belly area is a good idea if you’re looking to lose weight in this area. Pick a handful of exercises and then perform each as hard as you can for 30 seconds before taking a 10-second break in between each set. In order for your HIIT workouts to really work, you need to push yourself harder than regular circuits to ensure you’re burning as many calories as possible. In between each exercise, take no more than a minute or two before starting the next workout.

3. Metabolic Resistance Training

Another program great for burning a lot of calories quickly, metabolic resistance training (MRT) can be used for entire body workouts or to focus on specific areas like your core. Similar to HIIT, MRT encourages people to push themselves to work very hard during each exercise with almost no rest between sets and reps.

MRT also tends to focus more on resistance training, which will help you to build your muscles and shape your body to be leaner while still burning a lot of calories.

4. Weight Training

If you’re going to try weight training as your main program, you should combine it with some type of cardio exercise. The cardio aspect of your workout will burn fat quickly while weight training will also help to build muscle. This type of workout is great for those who prefer more traditional circuits or are not interested in the high intensity of HIIT or MRT.

Many studies have shown that weight training is an excellent method for boosting your resting metabolism—meaning how fast your metabolism works when you’re not working out. Increasing your metabolism will help to burn fat and retain lean muscle. Select some of your favorite workouts with weights or try some of the many sample programs out there. Including workouts like bench presses, pull-ups and barbell deadlifts in your weight training is a guaranteed method for building up your muscle.

Protein Shakes

When trying to alter your diet for the sake of weight loss, you need to be conscious of your calorie intake. Many people mistakenly think this means you should be eating less food, but that’s not the case. Your body still needs enough protein and nutrients to function at 100 percent, which will also help with dropping weight during workouts.

In order to do this, you should try to identify foods with a lot of health benefits, protein and low-calorie count. Adding a protein shake to your diet, whether it’s as a meal replacement in the mornings or around the time you usually exercise, can help satiate hunger and fuel your body with the proper amount of protein. Try incorporating these shakes in your diet for low-calorie intake.

1. Chocolate Protein Shake

Ingredients:

• Handful of ice
• 1-½ cups milk or unsweetened almond milk
• 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (whey, casein or pea are the most common)
• 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder

Directions:

First, add ice and milk and then protein and cocoa powder. Shake your Ice Shaker well and enjoy!

2. Strawberry Banana Protein Shake

Before preparing this shake, mash up or blend some fresh strawberries and bananas to make the shake smooth.

Ingredients:

• Handful of ice
• 1-½ cups milk or unsweetened almond milk
• ½ cup blended strawberries
• 1 mashed banana
• 1 scoop protein powder of your choice (add a vanilla or chocolate flavored powder for extra flavor)

Directions:

Blend or mash strawberries and bananas. Pour milk over ice and then add strawberries and bananas before putting in protein powder. Shake your bottle well.

3. Green Protein Shake

Ingredients:

• Handful of ice
• 1-½ cups milk or unsweetened almond milk
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 cup mashed fruit (strawberries, bananas, kiwis, berries, etc.)
• Chia seeds – 1 tablespoon
• 1 scoop protein powder

Directions:

This type of shake takes a little extra preparation but is a great way to pack greens, fruit and protein all into one drink. Blend together your selected fruits with spinach and chia seeds for a few minutes in the blender. Then, mix into your Ice Shaker with milk, ice and protein powder before giving the bottle a good shake.

4. Peanut Butter Protein Shake

Ingredients:

• Handful of ice
• 1-½ cups milk or unsweetened almond milk
• 1 scoop PBfit powder
• 1 scoop chocolate protein powder

Directions:

Add ice and milk to the shaker bottle first. Then, pour in powders and shake well.

A former 3-year starter in the NFL for the Cowboys, Colts & Broncos, Chris Gronkowski is now the CEO of Ice Shaker. Ice Shaker has been featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, Good Morning America, HLN morning express, Forbes and others. Chris is the middle of the 5 Gronkowski brothers and has started writing about his athletic and entrepreneurial experiences.