4-Week Advanced Weight Loss Program

If you want to lose serious weight, you know you need to do two important things: exercise and eat a healthy, low-calorie diet. But, just how much exercise do you really need to lose weight? Usually, it's more than you think.

Exercise Recommendations for Weight Loss

For weight loss, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends accumulating 200-300 minutes of exercise each week to lose weight (and that's without changing your eating habits). This translates to about 30-60 minutes of exercise every day.

That's a pretty broad definition, so you may wonder what those workouts actually look like. That's the question this 4-Week Advanced Weight Loss Program answers, giving you four weeks worth of high intensity, advanced workouts that will help you build strength and endurance, and lose weight.

The 4-Week Advanced Weight Loss Program

This name of this program says it all. It's full of tough, high-intensity cardio workouts and strength training sessions, with circuit training thrown into the mix.

Before starting this program, you should be well-versed in exercise and have at least a good six months of consistent exercise under your belt. If you're a beginner, ease into a more basic exercise program to allow your body to get used to exercising before trying these intense workouts.

What You Need

To follow this four-week program, you will need the following exercise equipment:

• A cardio machine, or a favorite activity you can do for up to 30-45 minutes
• A few sets of dumbbells (five to 40 pounds each)
• An exercise ball
• A resistance band 
• A mat 
• A BOSU balance trainer (you can also substitute a step or do the moves on the floor)
• A medicine ball

The Workout

Here's a brief overview of what the workout looks like, followed by the workout itself.

• Week 1: Your first week starts with six days of working out with a mix of steady state cardio, total body training, high-intensity cardio and core, and flexibility workouts.
• Week 2: This week introduces a bit of a different schedule with a couple of new workouts to try. Listen to your body and take extra rest days as needed.
• Week 3: This week is the same as last week, so there's nothing really different...just tough workouts to help you get fit and burn calories. Pay attention to how you feel this week since too many high-intensity workouts can lead to burnout or overtraining.
• Week 4: For your last week, you'll have one new workout, plus you get an extra rest day this week, something that is well deserved if you finished all the workouts. No matter how many you finished, give yourself a reward for working so hard.

Tips for Better Workouts

Here are a few ways to get the most out of this 4-Week Advanced Weight Loss Program:

• See your doctor if you have any medical conditions, illnesses or injuries to ensure that this workout is safe for you to do.
• Make it work for you by modifying it as needed. This is a very tough workout schedule, so take extra rest days and skip workouts if you need to. It's perfectly fine to stay at one week for a while rather than moving on if that's what you need to perfect the exercises. Make this schedule work with your life and your fitness level.
• Substitute your own workouts if you have other activities you enjoy. The more you like the workouts, the greater the likelihood that you'll turn exercise into a habit.