Max heart rate = 220 – (Age)

Now that you have your maximum heart rate, the rest of the discussion will be done in terms of %age of your maximum heart rate. Here are some of the training zones:

Warm-up Zone: 50 – 60% of HR(Max)

This is a very good training zone for people who are just starting with some physical activity. There’s no strain on the heart and the risk of injury at this HR is very low. At this level, 75% of the Calories come from Fat.

 Fat Burning Zone: 60 – 70% of HR (Max)

The percentage of Calories that come from Fat are almost the same (80 – 85%) but since the training is more vigorous, you lose more overall Calories from other c\sources as well. Activities like brisk walk, jogging and light cycling come under this category.

 Endurance Training Zone (Aerobic): 70 – 80% of HR (Max)

The percentage of Calories that come from Fat fall in this zone (50 – 60%) but overall, you lose more Calories. This zone is very beneficial for cardiovascular health, respiratory system and muscular endurance.

 Performance Training Zone (Anaerobic): 80 – 90% of HR (Max)

The percentage of Calories is almost same as the Endurance Training Zone (50 – 60%) but overall, you lose more Calories. High intensity weight training falls in this category.

It becomes clear that the ideal fat burn heart rate is in the range of 50 – 70% of your maximum heart rate. You can keep track of your heart rate during your training sessions by wearing a Heart Rate monitor with some sort of external display. This will give you a good idea which zone you’re hitting and what your target should be.

Keep in mind that people who choose to crash diet do exactly that…crash.

Unfortunately, the problem with this approach is that it very rarely works. You might lose weight initially, but most of the weight is bound to come back (with a vengeance) once you stop which inevitably happens.

The second approach to winning the battle with weight loss is adopting a patient approach to the problem. Building a sustainable battle plan and sticking to it. This is the best way to lose weight.
By making certain healthy lifestyle changes, you will not only lose weight, you’ll be able to keep it off. So what are the best ways of losing weight? Well, the following are some universally accepted tips that you simply can’t ignore.

Reduce your Daily Calorie Intake

If you’re serious about weight loss then you simply must change your current eating habits. Until you do so, you’ll find it that much harder to lose weight.

When it comes to weight loss, the enemy is calories. After a meal, your body converts the calories that it needs into fuel and then stores the rest. The body requires at least 1,200-1,500 calories to carry out its everyday activities.

Your mission (now that you’ve chosen to accept it) is simple. In order to lose weight, you’ll need to ensure that you’re eating just enough food to fuel your body. This way, your body will be forced to turn to its fat reserves to make up the deficit.

Reducing your daily calorie intake doesn’t mean that you need to starve. In fact, it’s possible to eat five meals during the day without ever going hungry. To achieve this, you’ll need to change your diet to healthier foods.

Eat more fruits, vegetable and whole grain meals. Complex carbs take a lot longer to digest and do not have as much calories as processed foods.

Avoid refined foods. They’re stripped of most of their nutrients and contain nothing but carbs. Instead of eating a biscuit or chocolate as a snack, try eating a fruit instead. You’ll lose weight faster. You can also start a food journal to track what you eat daily. If you reduce your daily calorie intake by 500 calories, you could lose as much as 8 pounds in a month.

Drink Lots of Water

How much water do you drink every day? Water plays an invaluable role in your body’s metabolism. This is important because you lose weight faster with an elevated metabolism.

Many people sometimes mistake the body’s thirst demands as signs of hunger. The next time you crave a snack, try drinking water instead. Water is filling and contains no calories. A good tip is to drink water before every meal. Statistics show that people who drink water before a meal tend to eat less. Drinking water also keeps your metabolism active, burning more calories.

Instead of drinking fizzy drinks and sugary beverages, drink water. Without the surplus calories, you’ll be able to lose weight at a much faster rate.

Eat Regular Meals and Smaller Portions

Instead of three large meals, break it into 5-6 smaller ones. Remember the aim is to provide your body with just enough calories for what it needs. Eating a large meal will leave your body flushed with more calories than it actually needs. It’ll also slow down your metabolism which is why many people go to sleep after a heavy meal.

Don’t skip meals. Starving yourself is the worst possible way to lose weight. Your body will fight back by holding on to the fat that it already has. Do not forget to eat breakfast. An early breakfast is the best way to kick-start your metabolism. Eating breakfast will also ensure that you have enough energy during the day. Statistics show that most people who skip breakfast end up overeating later on in the day.

Don’t Eat at All – Fasting Weight Loss

Ok this goes against what I just said above but there’s a lot of research going on into how well fasting works with weight loss. I’ve actually been testing out a modified version of Eat Stop Eat, which I think is well researched and thought out.

Here’s an alternative to the eating regularly plan lined out above. If you do decide to go the fasting route I would suggest that you be on an exercise plan to really kick your metabolism into gear.

The goal is to only eat during an 8 hour time frame, preferably starting in the middle of the day. You want to eat 40% of your calories during your first meal. Load up on coffee with sweeteners if you need something to keep you going.

The rest of your meals can be spread out during the 8 hour window with your last meal being higher in slow absorbing proteins like casein which is found in cottage cheese or alternatively lean meat. You should also be eating some kind of greens and add an omega fatty acid supplement to the mix or olive oil.

To really kick your metabolism into overdrive workout prior to your first meal. Prior to your workout you should be taking a BCAA (branched chain amino acids) supplement. I just started on this diet routing myself to see if it really works but I have been told by a few natural body builders that they use this method and get excellent results.

Your goal should be a 16 hour fasting period each day and make sure to eat lots of fruits and vegetables with your meals.

Personal Recommendation for Dieters on the go

If you’re like me you don’t have a lot of time to be preparing meals and store bought healthy frozen meals just don’t cut it.

They’re typically loaded with tons of sodium which causes water weight gain and gives you that bloated look.

There is an alternative.

What is it?

…freshly cooked prepared meals delivered to your home.

Many companies sell them like eDiets, Jenny Craig, Diet-to-go, etc. There is one company that I’ve been using off and on now for a good year and a half.

It’s Diet-to-go.

So why did I pick them?

Well, for one reason they have great prices. If you compare it to what you would spend at a store, it comes out to around the same price and that’s not counting what you end up throwing away in your fridge.

The other reasons are because it’s fresher and better tasting than frozen dinners. Not to mention healthier.

They have a good selection of meals with 3 variations: low-carb, low-fat, and low-sodium.

So, if you’re strapped for time and you’re looking for a good alternative to cooking meals or buying frozen meals give diet-to-go a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

If you do decide to give it a try take advantage of the 15% discount using Coupon Code: CJ15P – Click Here

This is one of the best ways to lose weight for people who just don’t have the time for following a diet.

Exercise More

Changing your eating habits will reduce the amount of calories coming into your system but exercising will boost the amount of calories that you burn during the day allowing you to lose weight faster. The amount of calories that you burn will depend on the exercise that you do.

For instance, you can burn as much as 900 calories a day by running for 60 minutes while you can burn 400 calories for walking for the same period.

To get the most out of your exercise routine, you need to exercise at your target heart rate which is an aerobic zone that falls between 50 % and 80% of your maximum heart rate. An easy way of calculating your maximum heart rate is to subtract your calendar age from 220.

Ok now that I got the textbook exercise answer out of the way, what exercises work best to lose weight?

I have yet to find anything that works better than weight training.

If you’re a woman you’re probably thinking something along the lines that it’s going to make you look bulky or bigger.

Listen up women…it’s not gonna happen.

You are not designed to get big and muscular. The only way that’s going to happen is by either a) you body build professionally or b) you do steroids.

If you want my honest recommendation on the best exercises to lose weight you have two options.

Option 1: Move Some Iron!

Bench Press
Dead lifts
Squats
Chin-ups (palms facing you shoulder width apart)
Pull-ups (palms facing away slightly wider than shoulders)

For simplicity I’m going to give you a simple routine. Workout 3 days a week and do each exercise twice during the week. Your goal should be to constantly be adding more weight to increase your strength and to be pushing each set to the point where you can’t do another one.

Prior to starting get on the treadmill or bike for 5-10 minutes to get you warmed up.

The reps and sets should look something like this.

3 Sets – Set 1 (6-8 reps at heavy weight), Set 2 (8-10 reps at slightly lower weight), Set 3 (10-12 reps at even lower weight)

Make sure when you start lifting weights that you do a warm up set. And if you’re not familiar with these exercises have someone show you proper form so you don’t hurt yourself.

I guarantee that if you focus on getting stronger with every workout that you will start leaning up so fast that you won’t believe it. Working out with the focus of getting stronger with every workout will turn you into a fat burning machine.

Option 2: It’s Beach Body Time!

If you’re just dead set against lifting weights than your next best option is to get a program like Beach Body. And yes I’ve done this one too…it kicked my butt.

Beach Body is cardio on steroids. I have never done more intense cardio EVER! And let me tell you I like to push myself. I found myself having to slow my pace with this program.

I highly recommend Beach Body for those who don’t want to go to the gym. You can easily pace yourself and work up to higher intensity levels. In fact, it comes with a notepad to keep track of your results. Try it out for yourself – Beach Body

Would you believe I tried to keep this article short? Hopefully it didn’t bore you and answered your question of “What is the best way to lose weight?”

The answer really comes down to making incremental changes by changing bad habits to good habits. It’s no different than anything else you want in life it’s just a matter of how much you want it.

Everyone’s looking for a ‘quick fix’ that’ll bring them back to their ideal body weight with the least amount of trouble and pain. But the bad news is hat quick fixes don’t work in the long run.

You may be satisfied by the short term results but crash diets don’t work when it comes to sustaining the weight you have lost because, let’s face it, they are impractical.

For losing weight and adopting a healthy lifestyle, you’ll probably have to make lifelong changes!

Seems scary, doesn’t it but that’s the whole problem. People have redefined what’s normal. Look at like this a McDonald’s supersize meal has around 1200 calories typically.

Let’s put this into perspective. 1200 calories can account for 50–90% of your daily caloric intake depending on your age, gender and body type.

So, if you want to lose weight within a week, you need t to redefine what’s normal!

The bad news is that you can’t possibly expect to lose all the extra weight you carry within a week (Unless the extra weight is around 2-3 lbs). After all, you didn’t gain all of that weight in a week so in reality you’re not going to lose it in a week, it’s simple math.

To lose 1 lb of fat, you need to create a Caloric deficit of 3500 calories. This means that when your body consumes 3500 Calories less than what it is expending, you can lose up to 1lb of fat. So, if you go for a daily deficit of around 500 calories, you can lose 1 lb of weight in a week and kick start the process of weight loss. So, there’s the good news.

Now the next question is how to create a deficit of 500 calories each day. One way would be to starve yourself, but since we are aiming at healthy and sustainable weight loss, that is not an option. The healthy way in a nutshell would be, firstly, to stop eating foods with sugar altogether. Secondly, all processed white bread is off the table.

Then comes the fat, all fatty foods are off the table. Dairy has many health benefits so you may go with low fat dairy products. Then comes the empty calories that we love to consume through sodas, soft drinks and juices. These things are banned as well.

The replacements are fresh vegetables, some fresh fruits, lean meat (Fish, chicken etc – preferably roasted not fried). Also, you may have whole grains, unprocessed foods such as Oatmeal, brown rice and a small serving of nuts (They are high in healthy fats so don’t overeat them).

If such changes are made, you’ll see that you’ll automatically be consuming 25–45% less calories. To further improve the deficit we have exercise! Healthy eating and exercise go hand in hand (just like peanut butter and jelly).

If you want a good jump start and if you want to see some results within a week, do aerobic exercises at least 5 times a week. Each session should be around an hour long and the intensity level should be moderate. Brisk walking, jogging, running, swimming, bicycling would be ideal candidates to choose from. If you are not accustomed to working out or exercising daily, don’t over exert yourself. Over exertion may seem useful for the first few days but there are chances of injury, cramps and other physical problems.

If you are successful in altering your lifestyle in the mentioned ways, chances are that you’ll see some ‘measurable’ weight loss in 1 week’s time! But this doesn’t mean you go back to your old habits; continue with your routine and you will definitely start to see more results in your quest to lose weight.

Most people prefer to use various slimming pills and teas to burn the fat, but these offer temporary benefits and will not do anything to change the physiology of your body.

Exercise and diet, on the other hand, will strengthen your core so that your body can still burn fat even when you are at rest. The good news is that there are many ways to lose belly fat while you enjoy yourself.

Best Exercises to Lose Belly Fat

Belly fat exercises range from stretching to core muscle exercises. Strength and core exercises are designed to train your muscles so that you can perform these ab exercises better and safer. There are exercises that target your ab muscles specifically so that you tone, strengthen, and gain more definition in the abdominal area.

Yoga

Yoga is the best way for you to get your entire body into shape. Yoga incorporates breathing with stretching poses that tone and strengthen the muscles in your back, your shoulders, your chest, arms, legs, and core. Yoga is also a famous calorie burner, so you are burning the fat from various parts of your body, not just off your abs.

Swimming

Swimming is another notorious calorie buster. When you swim, you are toning your shoulders, arms, and legs. You are strengthening your core and burning calories off your midsection as you swim because you are using your abdominal muscles to power your legs for pushing against the water.

Ab Crunches

Ab crunches are perfect for giving cut and definition in your abs. Abdominal crunches put the tension in the middle of your abs, while reverse crunches puts the tension on your lower abs for a total workout of your ab muscles. When doing this workout, keep the abs flat and taut as you rise up for each crunch. It is also important that you raise your chest, not your neck.

Sit-ups

This is the classic ab workout, but you need the supervision of a trainer to do this so you do not pull anything and injure yourself. Sit-ups can be hard for someone who is overweight but with practice it can slowly become easier and easier to perform. It is important to perform sit-ups in clothes that are not constricting.

It’s also important to note that you should inhale as you rise, and exhale once you are on a sitting position. You can also do sit-ups outdoors so that you get the benefit of fresh air as you exercise. You can liven things up by performing this exercise and other exercises in the company of friends.

Mountain Climb

This exercise is great for toning your legs and shoulders as it burns belly fat. To do the mountain climb, you assume the plank position, and then move the right foot to your right hand. Move the right foot back as you move the left foot towards your left hand. You can do this for 8 to 12 reps before taking a breather.

The exercise puts the tension on your abs and helps burn fat off your love handles. Doing this exercise with loud rock music blaring in the background can help pump you up and you just might even end up doing a few more reps than expected.

Although there is no best way to lose belly fat, there are numerous and fun ways to do so. As long as you are enjoying the exercise, you can trim down without even realizing it. Look for an exercise that you enjoy. If swimming is not for you, there are other exercises such as jogging, hiking, and biking which are equally effective at burning excess calories.

Figuring out which advice to follow is frustrating at best, but there are a few tricks you can use to lose weight fast.

1.) Control Your Blood Sugar

Even people who don’t have diabetes can benefit from practicing strict blood sugar control. Get a glucose monitor, and test yourself before and after every meal. By adjusting your portion sizes and carbohydrate intake, you can keep your blood sugar between 70-130 mg/dL.

Many people report losing up to twenty pounds in a single month just by keeping their blood sugar within this range, so that makes blood sugar control one of the best fast ways to lose weight without pills.

2.) Lift a Bowl of Soup

If you hate lifting weights and running, try a soup diet. Any type of soup will work, but those with high fiber content and low sodium will work best. Soups fill you up without a lot of calories, and the extra liquid in your diet will help flush toxins from your system.

Soup diets have been popular for decades because they are easy, they taste good, and they can peel off up to ten pounds in a single week. It’s a great way to lose weight without exercise.

Soup diets may be used for extended periods of time, but care should be taken to ensure that soup menus include sufficient calories. Extremely low calorie diets will cause rapid weight loss, but the side effects of very low calorie diets can sometimes be dangerous. Aim for a minimum of 1,200 calories per day, regardless of the type of diet you decide to follow.

3.) Go Vegetarian

At least try to go vegetarian part time. A well planned vegetarian diet is usually low fat, high fiber, and contains all the vitamins and minerals your body needs without a lot of calories. A week-day vegetarian diet is the best way to lose weight for those who don’t have a lot of time to cook and those who actually like vegetables.

4.) Be a Carnivore

Very low carbohydrate diets based on lean meats, nuts, seeds, and green vegetables will melt off excess weight within weeks. As far as fast diets go, low carbohydrate diets are one of the most effective ways to drop pounds. However, they may not be healthy for everyone, and many people can’t stay on a very low carbohydrate diet for long. Still, if you only need to lose ten or fifteen pounds, and you like meat, being a carnivore could be your ideal short term diet.

Low carbohydrate diets should be avoided by people with kidney disease. Also, people with severe forms of heart disease should ask their doctor if a low carbohydrate diet is safe for them. Although low carbohydrate diets are safe for most people, those with certain health conditions should avoid diets with excess protein.

5.) Practice Mindful Eating

Mindful eating means that not only do you plan every bite that goes into your mouth, you make a point to really enjoy it. Eat slowly, and serve small amounts of several different foods at each meal instead of the standard main dish and two or three sides. This way of eating allows you to experience the full flavor and aroma of your food without fatiguing your taste buds or accidentally bolting your food. Mindful eaters consume an average of twenty percent less food per day, which can add up to some serious weight loss over the course of a few weeks.

6.) Be a Little Fruity

Fruit based diets are an amazing weight loss tool. Not only will you lose weight fast, but you will get to enjoy a variety of delicious fruits that you normally probably wouldn’t buy. Fruit diets may focus on smoothies and juices, or they may be based on whole, raw fruit. Either way, dieters who build their menus around fruit report losing eight to twelve pounds a week during the first couple of weeks.

Fruit diets should not be used by those with diabetes, kidney disease, or certain digestive disorders. Those who have had gallstones should avoid fruit diets, as well, due to the potential for causing another gallbladder attack from rapid weight loss. For healthy people, however, a fruit based diet is fine for a couple of weeks.

7.) Don’t be a Vacuum Cleaner

Dieting does not mean you can’t eat the things you like but most people tend to overeat too much of it. This is especially true when it comes to eating out. Most restaurants create their dishes to attack the taste buds. They’re generally high in sodium and rich with fat. Learn to cut yourself off instead of trying to finish every last bite. One meal can typically contain 1000+ calories. For many that’s half a day’s caloric intake.

Whether you’re at home or at a restaurant, start training yourself to eat smaller portions. Make it a goal to only eat half of the meal and save the rest for later. And be sure to pass on the bread before the meal. Instead drink a couple of glasses of water to help fill you up prior to eating.

No matter what type of weight loss plan you choose, remember that to lose weight fast should be a short term goal. For the best results, lose ten or fifteen pounds on a fast diet, then aim to lose no more than two pounds a week after that. Rapid weight loss is great motivation, but the best way to lose weight is from slow, steady progress.