Losing weight is hard work that requires lots and lots of your will power, determination, and big overall changes in your lifestyle and routines. I'm sure you've already come to terms with the fact that even the most healthy and balanced diet will not be complete without some sort of exercise.
Here at Verv we are all about encouraging you to make the most out of this experience and find real passion and joy in the process. The best way to maintain your motivation to do exercise is to find the most enjoyable way for you to stay active and fit. Some love outdoor sports, some shine in team sports, while others lose themselves in street dances.
And here comes boxing, one of the oldest and most challenging sports out there which you may not have considered at all, and that's a shame. Let's go through some benefits of boxing for weight loss, and, who knows, perhaps they'll inspire you to spice up your training routine from tomorrow on.
1. Cardiovascular Health
Still wondering if you can lose wight by boxing? You can stop wondering now, as I have one self-explanatory word for you – cardio. Have you noticed how often this word is being tossed around in the circles of weight loss promoters? Well, this is because putting some healthy stress on your heart and lungs on a regular basis not only decreases the risks of heart diseases, but also helps lose weight. While you can choose a cardio workout from a wide range of activities, you may want to try punching those extra pounds out of your body with boxing gloves from time to time.
2. Upper-Body Strength
Boxing is an intense whole-body experience, involving most of your muscles. But in comparison to many other physical training for weight loss, most of which focus on your bottom and legs (often most problematic parts of one's body), boxing gifts your arms, shoulders, and torso with a fair share of beautiful muscle tone. While a heavy bag that you'll be punching during workout is likely to weight at least 100 pounds, real-life strength build-up is practically inevitable.
3. Benefits in Proprioception
To determine if boxing is a good way to lose weight, you should evaluate its benefits in relation to other physical activities you might be engaging in. And here boxing gets a golden star, as it helps enhancing your proprioception – an awareness of your body position and movement through space, a sense of balance and coordination. The more competent and confident you are kinetically, the more enjoyment you get from any physical activity throughout your day, whether it's directly related to weight loss or not. Which leads us to our next benefit...
4. Higher Motivation
If you focus solely on how can you lose weight by boxing, you lose half the fun. One of the best parts of boxing is that you actually learn new skills and techniques that in turn boost not only your self-esteem, but also your motivation to continue with your endeavors, forgetting why you've started with this sport in the first place and falling in love with the feeling of getting fitter, stronger, and swifter. Without any question, it also empowers you with a notion that, in case of emergency, you'd be able to defend yourself.
5. Stress Relief
Punching the energy of your built-up anger and hate (which none of us have immunity to) out onto that nasty heavy bag is one of the best ways to relief your stress without actually hurting anyone in the process. Stress can become your loyal companion while trying to achieve the body of your dreams and facing the slow-motion nature of such change. If you let those thoughts overwhelm you and the stress hormone cortisol levels get out of control, it can in fact prevent you from losing that unnecessary fat, so it's really not worth it. Hence boxing is a good workout to lose weight, to balance your mood, and to strike that unhealthy kind of stress out of your system.
