Dion Lewis
The modern person faces a lot of constraints when it comes to exercise, the biggest of them is time. You would be lucky to squeeze in an hour for yourself to build up a sweat with a regular nine-to-five routine.
Sitting behind a desk not only cuts through time but also lowers your activity levels which in turn contributes to weight gain.
Why is this important? The benefits of exercise are many and most people are aware of most of them. A healthy body contributes to a healthy mind after all. It will make you feel less sluggish at work and your daily performance will see a boost, among others. But most importantly, it will help you lose those extra pounds and keep your body weight stable.
With the pedal exerciser, you can burn some extra calories while simultaneously focusing on your other duties. You can burn approximately over a hundred pounds in the space of an hour on this machine, all the while typing away at your office report!
To understand better let us dive into the information we have gathered from our own experiences and research.
➥ Pedal exercisers or mini under desk exercise bikes can be a great help for senior people. Because these are low-impact exercise equipment and seniors can use them at their own ease.
Pedal Exerciser: What is it?
Portability and convenience gave rise to the pedal exerciser. Just imagine the pedal section of your average bicycle with its own drive and without wheels attached.
This little machine mimics the movement of pedaling on a regular bike without having to move away from your seat.
It is small enough to allow you to tuck it under your desk and enable you to pedal away while you get your work done.
The strap and adjustable resistance will secure your feet on the pedals and not distract you from what you were doing.
Some of them may allow you to track your progress by adding a tiny screen that you can check between intervals of work. This display may be able to record your distance, time, speed, Revolutions Per Minute (RPM), and even total calories burned.
These portable machines come at portable prices, with most standard peddlers being under the $100 mark. Some of the more expensive ones come with better parts or more features (like handles).
They can even be quiet enough so that you can take it to your workplace and burn some calories there without distracting your co-workers.
➥ Here is a comparison we made between pedal exerciser & stationary bike.
How many calories do I need to burn to lose weight?
A very common question on the tongues of anyone who is the least bit conscious about their health. We hope to provide you with a simple and clear answer without making you lose your head with numbers.
The idea is pretty simple: burn more than you take. You can do this in two ways:
Burning more calories than your body naturally requires will see you achieve a net deficit.
OR
Intake fewer calories (food and drinks) in your body than it burns to achieve this deficit.
This means that your body will be using its reserve of stored energy, in other words, fat, to make up for the extra energy expenditure. Eventually losing your body weight.
In simple mathematical terms, if you expend more OR cut down on around 500 calories per day, you will be seeing yourself losing 1 pound (or 0.5 kg) of your weight per week. [Source: Mayo Clinic]
You can achieve this in many ways. But today we will look at how you can manage this by using a pedal exerciser.
Burning Calories Using a Pedal Exerciser
According to a study presented in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, they have found out that office workers using an under-desk pedal exerciser, for an average of 50 minutes per day, have lost over 500 calories in a week.
This number may initially seem small, but it will add up over the weeks and months. What it means is that you don’t have to miss out on that donut at work while being conscious about your weight gain, as it will be kept stable due to the pedal exerciser.
But we are not here for stability, we are here for weight loss with the help of this equipment.
So, by putting together this information and our previous calculation, you can see yourself losing more than a pound every two months.
Of course, using the foot peddler is not limited to an hour a day nor does it have to stay at the same resistance level. So, to bump up your weight loss you can adjust the following factors:
1. Time
Following the study, we have seen that you can burn an average of 107 calories in nearly an hour. If you utilize that time five times a day, you can see yourself losing more than a pound of weight per week.
This can be very easily achieved if you pace yourself with a few hours during work and the rest during your leisure time.
If you can put those hour-long intervals 5 times during work hours, assuming you do a 9-5 job, you can add some extra hours at home to get more calories burned.
2. Resistance or Intensity
The resistance of the foot pedal is adjustable. With a lower resistance and focused intensity, perhaps during work breaks, you can burn up to 100 calories in the space of 20 minutes.
Moderately raising that resistance can see you burn over 150 calories in that time period.
It is also possible to break those barriers if you are at home and just focusing on your exercise with higher intensity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. Does pedaling help lose belly fat?
Ans.: No, not necessarily. Under-desk foot peddlers do not target the core (abdomen area) muscles of the body, only the ones on the lower body.
While it does help you burn more calories as it is a piece of cardio equipment, that doesn’t necessarily mean your belly fat is getting targeted specifically. With continuous use, you will probably see weight loss and that might result in a flatter tummy.
Q2. Are desk peddlers effective?
Ans.: Yes and no. “Yes” because just getting some exercise done is better than not doing any. The foot peddler provides a convenient option to burn calories while focusing on other things, even during leisure. And “no” in the sense that there are a lot of better options out there to help you work out and shed more pounds much more effectively, like treadmills, ellipticals, or stationary bikes.
➥ To know more on this topic, read this article: Do pedal exercisers really work?
Q3. How can I lose weight with a desk job?
Ans.: There are generally two ways that you can go about losing weight. The first is to use up (burn) more calories than what your body naturally utilizes. The second is to lower the intake of calories under the level that your body needs.
The first process can be done by exercising and burning those extra calories. With a desk job, this can be made possible by utilizing an under-desk foot peddler or a mini elliptical. These are both aerobic exercise equipment and can be utilized while you are working.
The second process can obviously be achieved by controlling your intake of food and drinks, with the rule of thumb being to avoid anything that has high calories and comes in small packages, like chocolates or foods that are sweet.
Combining both of the processes will give the most effective result.
Final Words
While the foot peddler provides an amazing solution to weight loss for the ever-busy modern person, it should not trump regular exercise routines.
For the reasons that the under-desk pedal exerciser shines is also where it falls short. It helps calorie burn by only utilizing some of the muscles of the lower body, leaving your upper body completely at rest.
For a healthy body, you should take advantage of all the muscles of your body. Uneven targeting can cause more problems than not.
So we suggest you add some light upper body exercises and stretches along with your regular use of the foot peddler for the best effect.
