There are a lot of myths and fads out there when it comes to weight loss. Some say that you need to diet hard to reduce your calorie intake. Some say that diet is not important, as long as you maintain stringent weight loss exercise programs. Some take the middle road, and say that you should have a healthy diet and do some sort of exercise program.
While it is well established that a healthy diet is important, what a lot of people fail to address is what sort of exercise is the best to promote long term weight loss. Do the wrong sort of exercise and you might be wasting your time, or even working against yourself in the long run.
It has been a long held view that low intensity training is the best to burn fat. The reason put forward was that training in the low intensity zone allows the body to use oxygen and fat to fuel the exercise. (The low intensity zone is where your heart rate is at approximately 65% of your maximum heart rate threshold while exercising. Maximum heart rate is approximately 220 heart beats per minute less your age.)
Exercising in this zone for 30 minutes burns approximately 300 calories (depending on your weight) which has been established as the amount you need to burn to control weight.
The problem with this approach is that burning fat with low intensity training, while dieting, also burns protein, which is the building block of muscle. Burning muscle as well as fat to lose weight is not a desired result, as your metabolism will slow down. Research has shown that building and toning muscle is important to increase your metabolism. Why is that important? Well, if you increase your metabolism, which is the speed which your body processes food, you speed up fat burning and weight loss.
Studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia has shown that combining low intensity training with bursts of high intensity training promotes faster weight loss as well as the toning and building of muscle. This style of exercise is called interval training. The studies claim that it is possible to burn up to six times the fat than that under normal low intensity cardio training.
The training involves high intensity exercise for 8 seconds, followed by a recovery period of 12 seconds. This is repeated for 20 minutes. Make sure you warm up well. It is important to assess your fitness level before you start any interval training program, and increase the recovery periods if needed. Always check with your doctor before starting any exercise program.
The most effective methods for interval training are jogging, using a bike or a stationary exercise bike.
Losing fat and preventing muscle loss is critical to keeping the weight off permanently. It is common for weight to be put on quickly after a diet is finished, or stopping a cardio weight loss exercise program if muscle has been lost, because as muscle tone returns, protein is replaced and weight increases. That is why people sometimes experience a see-sawing effect of losing weight and putting it back on when the weight loss exercise program is stopped.
The most effective way to stop this see-sawing effect of losing weight only to regain it, and maybe even more, is to maintain muscle mass, keep your metabolism high, and target only losing that stubborn fat with weight loss exercise programs that incorporate interval training.
For free weight loss exercise programs that show you how to use interval training and burn up to six times more fat than normal, fast tracking your weight loss, check out these free weight loss exercise programsFor an exercise bike workout
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Graeme_Wheeler
Sunday, November 18, 2007
How to Naturally Lose Weight Fast - 5 Secrets
Losing weight has become a national obsession, and with good reason: we all want to look our best. We do it for health, we do it to look sexy to the people to whom we feel attracted. Sure, diet pills from the big drug companies might or might not work, but who knows what they are doing to our bodies: just look at the fen-phen debacle of the late-1990s.
Happily, there are ways to naturally lose weight while avoiding potentially dangerous diet pills manufactured by drug companies. Here are 5 secrets for how to naturally lose weight fast:
Secret #1: Know your calorie math: Put simply, over a given period of time you will lose weight if you burn more calories than what you take in. Pretty simple math, right? The unfair thing is: some people have a naturally slower metabolic rate (the rate at which your body naturally burns calories). That is why you have thinner friends who can eat twice as much as you eat without gaining a pound. However, even they are not exempt from the calorie math. So, start becoming acutely aware of how many calories you are taking in per day versus how many you are burning through exercise. If the math adds up, you will be subtracting pounds from your rear, thighs and tummy before you know it.
Secret #2: Drink more water: Water is the natural way to flush your system clean. As you begin to lose more weight, your blood will be flooded with toxins rejected from the cells in your body. Drinking more water will help flush these toxins out. Water also helps with basic cellular functioning and, importantly, metabolism.
Secret #3: Get a pedometer: Pedometers, or step counters, are really great little inventions. Just attach one to your belt in the morning, reset the counter to zero, and go about your day. At the end of the day, remember or write down your "score" (number of steps). After a few days, you may find yourself trying to outdo your own high score! A pedometer makes it easier to visualize the connection between your daily activity and your calorie burning. Pedometers start at around $1.
Secret #4: Cut out dessert: People who try to diet usually end up gaining all of the weight back within a few weeks. Reason: when we deprive ourselves of food, we end up craving it more and then end up blowing the diet. Try this: instead of going cold turkey on sweets, just cut out your after-dinner dessert. Even shaving those extra 200 calories from your daily diet means taking in 6,000 fewer calories a month!
Secret #5: Learn which snack foods are good for you: Snacking is one of the biggest enemies of a weight loss plan. Eating healthier snacks can actually make you want to eat less. Reason: your body craves healthy food. When you eat right, you will be less hungry.
Losing weight naturally is the best way to go. As you lose weight, you will feel better and you will look better to those to whom you are attracted. By understanding the connection between caloric intake and calorie burning, you have the right foundation in place for seeing significant weight loss.
Looking to burn more fat, faster? Try a proven eating plan invented by a professional bodybuilder: http://www.No-Fat-Yes-Muscle.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marie-Claire_Smith
Happily, there are ways to naturally lose weight while avoiding potentially dangerous diet pills manufactured by drug companies. Here are 5 secrets for how to naturally lose weight fast:
Secret #1: Know your calorie math: Put simply, over a given period of time you will lose weight if you burn more calories than what you take in. Pretty simple math, right? The unfair thing is: some people have a naturally slower metabolic rate (the rate at which your body naturally burns calories). That is why you have thinner friends who can eat twice as much as you eat without gaining a pound. However, even they are not exempt from the calorie math. So, start becoming acutely aware of how many calories you are taking in per day versus how many you are burning through exercise. If the math adds up, you will be subtracting pounds from your rear, thighs and tummy before you know it.
Secret #2: Drink more water: Water is the natural way to flush your system clean. As you begin to lose more weight, your blood will be flooded with toxins rejected from the cells in your body. Drinking more water will help flush these toxins out. Water also helps with basic cellular functioning and, importantly, metabolism.
Secret #3: Get a pedometer: Pedometers, or step counters, are really great little inventions. Just attach one to your belt in the morning, reset the counter to zero, and go about your day. At the end of the day, remember or write down your "score" (number of steps). After a few days, you may find yourself trying to outdo your own high score! A pedometer makes it easier to visualize the connection between your daily activity and your calorie burning. Pedometers start at around $1.
Secret #4: Cut out dessert: People who try to diet usually end up gaining all of the weight back within a few weeks. Reason: when we deprive ourselves of food, we end up craving it more and then end up blowing the diet. Try this: instead of going cold turkey on sweets, just cut out your after-dinner dessert. Even shaving those extra 200 calories from your daily diet means taking in 6,000 fewer calories a month!
Secret #5: Learn which snack foods are good for you: Snacking is one of the biggest enemies of a weight loss plan. Eating healthier snacks can actually make you want to eat less. Reason: your body craves healthy food. When you eat right, you will be less hungry.
Losing weight naturally is the best way to go. As you lose weight, you will feel better and you will look better to those to whom you are attracted. By understanding the connection between caloric intake and calorie burning, you have the right foundation in place for seeing significant weight loss.
Looking to burn more fat, faster? Try a proven eating plan invented by a professional bodybuilder: http://www.No-Fat-Yes-Muscle.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marie-Claire_Smith
Quick Weight Loss And Fast Weight Loss
There are different techniques that can be employed if you are looking for a quick fat loss. You can get a few products that are available in the market that claim to help you reduce the excess fat in your body. The use of these products should however be done only with the permission of the physician. Some of these products may have a slow side effect and affect you in the long run, hence the approval of the doctor is a must. You can get the weight loss pills if you are looking for a speedy recovery from obesity and over weight. Obesity and over weight often have long lasting impact on the body, and disable us from doing a number of things. For example obese people commonly face the problem of knee and joint pain. This mainly happens due to the unbalanced body's structure. If you reduce the weight you can automatically reduce the effort that is to be done by the different muscles to carry it.
Using the quick weight loss programs you can reduce a considerable amount of weight in a short time span. The use of the fat free foods and the low calorie food is a good option for the beginners. Along with these pre processed food you can also cook some healthy food for your self that is low in fat and carbohydrates. The carbohydrate we intake in our diet is directly converted into calories and gets stored in our body if not used. Similarly the excess fat that we consume through the fatty food is accumulated in our body. We can reduce the fat and hence indirectly the weight of the body by keeping a control on the intake of fat and carbohydrates in our diet. The regular habit of exercise would help you get a faster response.
Some of the breathing exercises can also be followed to increase the body's metabolism and for a faster weight loss. Quick weight loss can be obtained by doing regular exercise and following a proper diet, however if you want to further increase the rate of weight loss you can take the help of the weight loss pills and the other weight loss products. The weight loss pills comprise of naturally occurring medicinal value chemical that can help you increase the metabolism rate and helps conversion of the bad cholesterol to the good cholesterol.
Get more information on quick weight loss
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robin_Brain
Using the quick weight loss programs you can reduce a considerable amount of weight in a short time span. The use of the fat free foods and the low calorie food is a good option for the beginners. Along with these pre processed food you can also cook some healthy food for your self that is low in fat and carbohydrates. The carbohydrate we intake in our diet is directly converted into calories and gets stored in our body if not used. Similarly the excess fat that we consume through the fatty food is accumulated in our body. We can reduce the fat and hence indirectly the weight of the body by keeping a control on the intake of fat and carbohydrates in our diet. The regular habit of exercise would help you get a faster response.
Some of the breathing exercises can also be followed to increase the body's metabolism and for a faster weight loss. Quick weight loss can be obtained by doing regular exercise and following a proper diet, however if you want to further increase the rate of weight loss you can take the help of the weight loss pills and the other weight loss products. The weight loss pills comprise of naturally occurring medicinal value chemical that can help you increase the metabolism rate and helps conversion of the bad cholesterol to the good cholesterol.
Get more information on quick weight loss
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Robin_Brain
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