How many minutes should I skip rope daily to lose weight?

Depending on your diet, jumping rope for 30 minutes a day on most days of the week could help you lose weight.

According to jump rope experts, 30 minutes is kind of the sweet spot when it comes to jumping rope for weight loss. If you’re jumping at a moderately intense rate, a 30-minute skipping rope session can be pretty effective. And it isn’t too long, that you’re overtraining and injuring yourself.

As a beginner trying to lose weight, we recommend jumping rope for 5 to 10 minutes, every day. As you build stamina and get more experienced, you could increase that to 30 minutes a day, 2 to 3 times a week.

If you’re an advanced jumper, you could jump rope from anywhere between 30 minutes to even 90 minutes a day.

Calories burned by skipping rope

Wondering how many calories you can burn by skipping rope?

As per the American Council on Exercise, if you weigh 80 kg (175 pounds), you can burn around 476 calories from 30 minutes of fast skipping. 

If you were already consuming a healthy number of calories and didn't make any changes to that, you could lose around 2.5 pounds of fat per month, provided you stick to your 30-minute jump rope routine.

Now, say, in addition to your skipping rope routine, you reduce your calorie intake by around 500 calories a day. This could translate to a weight loss of around 5 pounds a month.

But please ensure that you never consume less than 1200 calories per day (for women) or 1500 calories per day (for men), without the advice of a medical professional.

Eat right to lose weight

The other bonus of jumping rope for 30 minutes a day, is that it compels you to focus on the most critical factor when it comes to losing weight - i.e. your diet. 

A lot of people think that they can just eat whatever they want and then work out for 2 hours at the gym the next day. But it just doesn’t work that way. No amount of exercise can trump a bad diet. 

At the end of the day, unless you create a calorie deficit, – i.e. you burn more calories than you consume- you are not going to lose any weight.

So, ensure that you eat a nutrient-rich diet that includes:

• Whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lentils, etc.
• High-protein foods such as lean meat, eggs, sprouted green grams, etc.
• Healthy unsaturated fats such as olive oil, nuts, seeds, peanut butter, etc.

Sample skipping rope routines for beginners

So, what should your 30-minute jump rope routine look like?

You could combine your jump roping with bodyweight exercises such as planks, squats, lunges, jumping jacks, etc. to get a total body workout.

Like this one here…

Or you could indulge in a full 30-minute jump rope sweat sesh.

Here’s one you could try…