While they are not the standard choices, fun activities like roller skating help you move more. Find out if this means roller skating is good for weight loss too.
If you want to achieve weight loss, you need to make it so your body requires more energy than is coming in from the things you eat. At this point, you start using energy stores like body fat.
Exercise, including fun activities like roller skating, can help with this by making your movements more intense. This increases how much energy you need/use.
In fact, roller skating can be relatively good for burning calories if you have a good location and the skill to do the activity intensely.
There are more effective exercises for this too but one of the benefits of roller skating is that many people find it fun. This can make it easier to stay consistent with an exercise routine.
On the other hand, you also want to keep in mind that roller skating involves a learning curve, location dependence, a certain injury risk, and potentially weather dependence.
Does roller skating help you lose weight?
Before going into the details, it is worth quickly noting that roller skating can indeed help you lose weight. However, exercising more is not a guarantee for weight loss either.
If you want to lose weight, you need to get to a point where your body needs more energy than is coming in from food. When this happens, you start using up energy stores like body fat to get the remaining needs.
Roller skating and other forms of exercise help with this because the intense movements involved require more energy than typical daily activities.
At the same time, the principles above also mean that if your habits in other lifestyle areas like nutrition are not good enough, you may not see any weight loss results from roller skating.
Additionally, you are likely not only interested in whether or not roller skating helps you lose weight. You only have a limited amount of time which means how good alternatives like running are also influences your choice.
Calories burned roller skating vs exercise alternatives
How much energy certain activities require from your body can be measured in terms of calories burned. There are ways to estimate these amounts for different activities and people.
One important thing to note is that how many calories can you burn roller skating in reality can differ from the estimations due to differences in body composition, hormone levels, exact speed, and more.
That being said, the numbers below can still help you understand how roller skating compares to other activities in this area.
A 155-pound (70 kg) person can burn more or less the following amounts of calories when doing the activities for 30 minutes (1):
- Roller Skating (general): 256 calories
- In-line Skating (9 mph/14.4 kmh): 275 calories
- In-line Skating (13.3 mph/21.4 kmh): 450 calories
- Water Aerobics: 149 calories
- Stretching (Hatha Yoga): 186 calories
- Rowing, Stationary (moderate): 260 calories
- Bicycling, Stationary (moderate): 260 calories
- Elliptical Trainer (general): 335 calories
- Running 5.2 mph: 335 calories
- Jumping rope: 372 calories
- Swimming (breaststroke): 372 calories
Something that stands out is that your roller skating speed can influence the numbers a lot.
That being said, if you have the skill and space to go at these higher speeds, roller skating can help you burn nice amounts of calories compared to many other exercises.
At the same time, there are also still activities like running that tend to burn more calories per minute than roller skating.
Can you lose belly fat by roller skating?
Many people get the impression that you have to do certain workouts or eat certain foods to lose belly fat.
Unfortunately, it is generally not possible to choose where you lose fat in significant amounts. This applies to both roller skating and other activities.
That being said, it is still possible to lose belly fat by roller skating if you follow the right steps.
More specifically, you first need to lose enough weight overall. This can happen with the help of roller skating but also better habits in other lifestyle areas like your diet.
Next, as you lose more and more weight, your body gradually uses more and more of the fat around your stomach.
If you continue making enough positive changes in your roller skating and other habits, this can lead to significant amounts of belly fat loss.
How long does it take to lose weight from roller skating?
Knowing that roller skating can potentially burn a lot of calories is great. However, you may also want to know what the weight loss results from this look like.
By now, it should be clear that how long it takes to lose weight from roller skating will also depend a lot on other things like your diet.
That being said, if you assume that the only change you make is implementing more roller skating, you can get some idea of how long it will take to see results.
A 155-pound (70 kg) person can burn an extra 1280 calories by roller skating 15 minutes a day for 10 days. This is about 0.37 pounds (0.16 kg) of body fat.
If the same individual keeps up the same roller skating routine for 30 days, they can lose about 1.1 pounds (0.48 kg) of body fat.
Keep in mind that how much you weigh influences how many calories you burn with roller skating a lot. As you lose weight over time, the same roller skating routine will offer fewer effects.
Disadvantages of roller skating for weight loss
So far, most of the points were about the positive effects of roller skating when losing weight. However, you do need to keep in mind that there are disadvantages too.
First of all, you need a good location to be able to roller skate. For many people that will mean spending some extra time driving to a certain location.
This makes it harder to fit roller skating sessions into a busy schedule.
Secondly, there is a certain learning curve involved in roller skating. You may need to practice a good amount before being able to reach the intensities of the calorie-burning estimations mentioned.
Thirdly, if you do the roller skating outside, you are somewhat dependent on the weather. Roller skating in the rain or snow is not ideal/possible.
Lastly, there is a certain injury potential involved in roller skating because you can fall down and hurt yourself. If this happens, you could not be able to exercise for a few weeks.
Should you do roller skating for weight loss?
When you have become skilled enough, roller skating can help you burn a nice amount of calories. In turn, this makes it a good weight loss exercise option.
It is true that there are workouts that are more effective in this area.
That being said, one of the benefits of roller skating is that many people find it a fun way to move more.
If you share this preference, you may find it easier to stick to an exercise routine that involves roller skating. Since consistency is such an important factor in a weight loss workout routine this can be a big benefit.
At the same time, you do still want to keep the disadvantages of roller skating in mind too.
In short, roller skating can be a good exercise choice for weight loss if you like doing it. Whether you should actually choose this activity also depends on how much the disadvantages apply to your situation.
Additionally, no matter what cardiovascular workout you choose, it can be smart to implement resistance training exercises too.
The extra weight in the form of muscle mass increases your energy usage throughout the day. This applies to roller skating workouts too.
Lastly, you likely want to keep an eye on other lifestyle habits like your diet too.
Does roller skating tone your stomach?
Roller skating does generally not grow your abs. On the other hand, it can help you tone your stomach by helping you lose weight. You do want to keep in mind that roller skating does not necessarily target your stomach area and that your habits in areas like nutrition need to be good enough too.
