You might have noticed that all of these people playing pickleball now are somewhat trim and in shape. That’s because Pickleball is not only a magnet for healthy people, but also is a great workout. Here we will explain why this 1-2 punch makes Pickleball an ideal sport to choose if you are looking to lose weight.
The Pickleball Community is Healthy
Studies have shown that losing weight can depend largely on the type of people you hang out with. There are certainly genetic factors at play when it comes to a person’s weight, but studies have shown that surrounding yourself with a healthy group of friends can influence your weight an weight loss quite a bit.
The Pickleball community is healthy, positive and could be a great choice if you are looking to surround yourself with healthy people. Joining a Pickleball club or getting a group of friends to play regularly will not only deliver health benefits, but also improve your social life as well making you feel better about yourself.
Pickleball is Accessible
Weight loss is a habit. Once you start to lose weight, its best if you sustain
your healthy lifestyle through an activity that is easily accessible. This concept is covered in depth by the Yoda of habits, Mr. James Clear.
Clear says that by priming your environment, you can make healthier habits stick. A couple examples could be always stocking your fridge with fruits and vegetables to eat healthier, preparing healthy meals ahead of time, and also living really close to Pickleball courts so that you get to play all the time.
The closer you live to Pickleball and good people who play Pickleball, the more active you will be. This should be easy in most cities, since Pickleball is starting to grow rapidly in every part of the country. This way, you’ll consistently burn calories by playing Pickleball.
How many calories per hour to you burn playing Pickleball ?
In order to lose weight, one needs to burn more calories than they consume. Which begs the question, how many calories do you burn playing Pickleball?
Well luckily our friends at calorie jam have a great calorie burn calculator for pickleball that you can check out here.
We went ahead and ran the numbers. Here is what the calorie burn for different weights look like when playing Pickleball:
- A 150 lb person playing Pickleball for 1-hour will burn about 357 calories
- A 200 lb person playing Pickleball for 1-hour will burn about 477 calories
- A 250 lb person playing Pickleball for 1-hour will burn about 596 calories
- A 300 lb person playing Pickleball for 1 hour will burn about 715 calories!
That’s right, if you are obese and play the undeniably fun game of Pickleball for a couple hours a couple times a week, you’ll burn close to 3000 calories! That’s a pretty damn good trade off.
How often do I have to play Pickleball to lose weight?
This depends upon the person, and also everything else you do in conjunction with Pickleball. Remember it is very important to first find a balanced diet that gives you a calorie deficit at the end of each day which you can sustain over the long run. But given that you’ve developed good eating habits for weight loss, playing Pickleball 2-3 times per week will help wonders with weight loss. . Any more than 3 times per week, and you are earning some serious extra credit in the ability to burn extra calories. Playing Pickleball 4-5 times per week might deliver weight loss results above expectations.
That said, if you are first starting out it might be intimidating to play multiple times per week. So if this is you, I would start slow and try to get out to the Pickleball courts once a week, then work up from there.
Conclusion
As you grow older, it gets harder and harder to lose weight and keep the pounds off. For both physical and psychological reasons, weight loss becomes more challenging as you age. That is why Pickleball is a great sport to choose to play regularly in order to lose weight. Not only do you get a vigorous workout in, you will also get a chance to join a social group that is health consious. The combination of these two life changes will be a great driver for weight loss.