How to Get Lean at Home With No Weights

Reduce your daily calorie intake by making a number of healthy changes to your diet. At breakfast, for example, use skim milk in your coffee and cereal. At lunch, increase your intake of vegetables, rather than high-calorie items such as cheese and potato chips. At dinner, eat a smaller portion size and select low-fat sources of protein. The exact number of calories on which to cut back depends on the recommended daily calorie intake for your demographic and your customary diet, but reducing the calories you consume makes it easier to attain the calorie deficit needed for weight loss.

Exercise regularly in and around your home with exercises that burn calories rapidly. Cardiovascular exercises can help you burn several hundred calories in a single workout. If you plan to exercise without leaving your home, activities such as dancing, jumping jacks, running on the spot, step aerobics and jumping rope are suitable to perform indoors. If you wish to use your neighborhood, walking, jogging, inline skating and riding a bicycle contribute positively to your calorie burn. For low-intensity activities such as walking, devote 300 minutes per week to your workout. In the case of high-intensity activities such as jumping rope or running, aim for 150 minutes.

Elevate your metabolism through body-weight exercises, which take the place of weight-training exercises in a well-rounded workout routine. Perform these exercises -- which work a variety of muscle groups and use only the weight of your body as resistance -- two or three times per week. Examples include pushups, crunches, burpees, squats, planks and lunges. As you gain muscle, you can perform advanced variations such as clap pushups.

Warm up your muscles before each workout with five to 10 minutes of light cardio.