If you are significantly overweight and engaging in exercise to lose weight, you should choose non-weight bearing forms of activity such as a static exercise bicycle or swimming. This will improve your fitness and help to get your weight down, whilst avoiding damage to joints and tendons. When your body weight has been reduced to more acceptable levels, you can safely add other activities such as brisk walking and badminton to your routine.

Here are some brief comments about the various forms of weight loss exercise mentioned above.

• Walking is the most natural of all exercises and has been undervalued in terms of its health-promoting properties. Indeed evidence suggests that a brisk walk every day may offer health benefits comparable to those normally associated with more vigorous exercise. One recent study found that women who walk briskly (3 to 4 miles per hour) at least three hours per week can reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke by 54 per cent. All in all, brisk walking is a great exercise and one accessible to almost everyone – including the elderly and patients with heart disease. Check how many steps you walk by getting yourself a pedometer (click here for pedometers ..!!!)
• Swimming is an excellent weight loss exercise, and is also a good way of improving fitness, but it also scores well for strength and flexibility. Because the water supports your body weight, swimming is ideal for anyone with back or joint problems, or who is overweight. The obvious disadvantage is that you need to have ready access to a swimming pool. Even if this is geographically convenient, there may be other limitations. Pools are often crowded with children, especially during school holidays and at weekends. This may make steady, good quality swimming hazardous or impossible. However, most pools have adult sessions at specific times (often early morning), and if you choose your times carefully you should be able to establish a regular routine. It shouldn’t cost much either – most pools have season tickets and special rates for lunchtime or early morning sessions.
• Cycling (outdoors) is a great exercise for cardiovascular fitness and, to a lesser extent, strength. It will do little for your flexibility, so you should add some stretching/ flexibility exercises to your weight loss exercise programme. There are few forms of exercise so enjoyable when the sun is shining and the leafy lanes beckon. The problem nowadays is that the roads are so congested with cars and heavy lorries, that cycling has become quite a dangerous form of recreation. It is also much more hazardous during the winter months when visibility is poor and the roads may be icy. I suggest sticking to cycling in the summer months and switch to other activities during winter.
  One last word here – always wear a crash helmet. The technology has improved enormously and nowadays the helmets are so light and well-ventilated that there really cannot be any excuse for not wearing one.
  Stationary cycling using an exercise bike is an excellent alternative exercise to lose weight if you’re worried about the roads. It has the great benefit of being very convenient and, used properly, is extremely effective. As a non-weight bearing exercise it has particular advantages for those with joint or weight problems. Unfortunately most people find it terminally boring – even with modern computer graphics that are meant to convince you you’re riding through the mountains of Colorado. But if you enjoy it – great!
• Exercise machines in health-clubs, gyms or at home, provide another form of exercise to lose weight, and are used by millions of people. The most popular examples are the treadmill, the cycle-ergometer (stationary bike), rowing machine, cross-country skier, and the stair stepper. The makers of these machines all claim superiority, but is there any real difference? A recent study suggests that the treadmill is the most effective indoor exercise machine, followed by the stair stepper, rowing ergometer and cross-country skier and stationary exercise bike. But the important thing when deciding which form of weight loss exercise to choose is to buy what you find most suitable to you, whether a bike or cross-country skier. Correctly used they are both excellent for the heart – and easy to get in front of the TV!
• Jogging and running are still very popular, although much more so among men than women. Jogging improves cardio-respiratory fitness, but does much less for strength and flexibility. What exactly constitutes jogging as opposed to running is difficult to say, although it’s usually taken that jogging is slower and less vigorous. Few people would argue that if you can cover a mile in six minutes or under you are running. If you take 10 or 20 minutes, you’re jogging. At what point the one merges into the other is anyone’s guess.
  You can run almost anywhere, and although you run the risk of injury to feet, ankles and knees, selection of proper footwear can reduce this to a minimum. When running on pavements look out for pot-holes and also for low-level branches from trees and shrubs – they can inflict serious damage to your eyes.