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.

To start off, let’s take a look at a much talked about topic; the BMR. What exactly is the BMR? To understand BMR we need to underst

and a few basic rules about Calories and how we burn them throughout the day.

Total calorie needs are determined based on a number of factors, including basal metabolic rate, gender, age, muscle mass, exercise, and voluntary movement.

•  Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories that you need at rest for those functions that are not under your voluntary control. This includes your heart rate, digestion, respiration, maintenance of blood pressure, and body temperature.
• BMR is responsible in most of us for approximately 60%–75% of the calories we need per day.
• Your muscle mass determines your BMR, so men have a higher BMR than women because men have more lean muscle mass.
• Another source of calorie burning is the thermic effect of food, which means the calories it takes to digest your food. Depending on what foods you eat, this makes up about 10%–30% of your total energy expenditure.

From the above discussion, it becomes clear that the lean muscle mass has an important role to play in the expenditure of daily calories you gain from food. The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you need for daily maintenance.

The problem is that gaining muscle mass is very hard. To gain muscle mass, your muscles have to go into overdrive. This means that they have to be overburdened in some way so that your body adapts to this muscle overdrive by producing more lean mass. This is exactly what weight lifters and resistance trainers do! But the question is that is it recommended for women? Definitely YES! Women have a very different anatomy when compared to men. It is actually very unlikely of them to get buffed like most male body builders. So don’t worry, you’re safe; hit the weights and hit them hard, but make sure that you follow a good routine that comprises of a variety of exercises that hit different muscle groups each day.

The surprising bit is that increasing your lean muscle mass by 10 – 15% will actually increase your daily caloric expenditure by approximately 200 – 300 Calories! What does this tell you?  Lean muscle mass can actually give you a liberty to eat more without getting fat. The best part is that there’s no downside to it. 10 – 15% gain in lean muscle mass is not even noticeable but do remember that it’s lean muscle mass and not weight itself. You may have to go to your physician to get a checkup in order to determine whether you’ve gained lean muscle mass or not. So, simply put, weight training can help women lose weight and sustain it, by causing an increase in their lean mass and by increasing their BMR.

But the problem is that people just don’t want to engage in anything physical! It’s as simple as that. They want shortcuts to weight loss and often they complain about how little time they have throughout the day.

So, how can you actually exercise without exercising!

The daily number of calories we burn depend on many factors; these factors include gender, age, body composition, physical activity and even weather!

For a certain individual, the number of calories he/she burns throughout the day is an aggregate of:

1. BMR.
2. No. of Calories burned through exercise.
3. No. of calories burned through additional physical activity.

BMR is an abbreviation for Basal Metabolic Rate and it is the number of calories an individual would burn in a day if he was to lay down and stay absolutely still throughout the day. To give you a small reference; a person weighing 70 Kgs with an athletic build would have an approximate BMR of 1600. This means that he would burn 1600 Calories, doing absolutely nothing.

Since we are disregarding exercise, the only way we can burn calories is through BMR and random physical activity. So, to boost your random physical activity without exercising, here are some top tips:

• Always ‘walk and talk’ on the cellphone. Make it a rule, whenever you attend a call on your cell phone, walk around or stroll. A perfect example of multi-tasking for your health!
• Say NO to escalators and walkalators (Moving walkways), whether they are at the train station or at the mall, use the stairs or use your own leg power.
• Create time for a little exercise in your lunch break. Dedicate half the time for eating lunch and for the remaining time, go for a quick brisk walk on the sidewalk or out in the garden or through the finance department!
• Don’t go for a lazy bath in the bath tub, go for a shower instead!
• Pay attention to your pets. If you have a dog, walk him out; if you have a cat try chasing her or maybe get chased by her! Be inventive, play games with them (Physical of course, not mental!).
• Make it a rule – If one of your favorite song’s on the TV/Radio, you’ll stand up and dance. It maybe clumsy, it may be fun; but the bottom line is you’re burning a lot of calories.
• Wash your car on the weekend.
• Fire the pool boy! Clean the pool yourself.
• Replace your couch with a treadmill. I know we’re not talking about ‘exercise’ here but rather than sitting down to watch your favorite sitcom, why not walk while you watch it! It’s not exercise; it’s just watching TV in a healthier way!
•  Be the handyman around the house; try to fix the kitchen sink or the wooden shelf yourself. Save money and stay healthy.
• Try to go to big departmental stores to shop. You’ll probably have to walk more and push that cart farther. You may also try and go to a store you’re not familiar with. That’ll mean more searching and moving to get your groceries.
• If it seems plausible and if it applies to you, ride your bike to work twice a week (or more if you get the hang of it).
• Play with your kids. Play their clumsy games, go in the garden, go for a water fight or try throwing Frisbee. Engage in activities that are fun yet a good source of burning calories without exercising.

Most of the people, who ask this question, have the basic aim of losing weight. They’re usually trying to lose weight through exercise but are lost before they even start. For losing weight, the very first thing you need to learn is mathematics!

Weight loss can only be kick started when Calories expended are exceeded by the Calories consume as food. So, do more and eat less; that’s the golden rule of weight loss.

Keeping this into consideration, the amount of exercise you do depends on how much you eat. If you’re having a Big Mac along with a XL smoothie as a single meal, you may have to run 10K daily to start losing weight!

Maintaining your weight

For general reference, anyone who’s eating according to his daily Caloric requirement needs 5 hours of moderate exercise to maintain his weight. Now, the good news is that these five hours can be broken down to suite your schedule. So you may want to go with 1 hour daily, 5 days a week or perhaps 10 sessions of 30 minutes spanned over the entire week. Now the word ‘moderate’ means that during your workout/exercise you can talk.

This is a rough estimate of workout intensity. For more vigorous exercises, your heart rate goes up and so does your breathing and you can’t talk during the workout making it a good test of your workout intensity.

Exercising for weight loss

For losing weight, on the other hand, you may want to exceed 5 hours a week or maybe keep increase the intensity of your workout, keeping the time constant. For losing weight, you can also adjust your food intake rather than going berserk in your workouts. Ideally speaking, it should be a balance of both; food intake and exercise.

Gaining lean mass

For people going for strength training, the routine can be very different. Strength training is different from other workouts because the main aim is to gain lean body mass. For this to occur, body requires a good resting period.

So, for strength training, a good idea would be to work out each muscle group at least once a week and give it a minimum rest of 48 hours before going after it again. For example, If you’ve done Chest and Back on Monday, go for Biceps and Triceps on Tuesday, take an off day on Wednesday and if you want to hit each muscle group twice, go for Chest and Back once more on Thursday.

Importance of resting

Appropriate rest for the body is as important as the workout itself. When the body rests, the muscle tissues get repaired and the body replenishes itself. Glycogen reserves are rebuilt and the body returns to its normal state. So it is always crucial to give it rest.

It doesn’t matter if you run, do aerobics or engage in Yoga; try to do it in moderation. Watch what you eat, get a good night’s sleep and try to engage in physical activity on daily basis; and you will soon realize that you may not even need to ask the question ‘how often should I workout?’

You may start strong for the few initial minutes of each workout but once Tony Horton and his team starts to do 20 pull-ups in one set, you’re almost flabbergasted!

It’s not only about strength training, the Yoga X video is all about Yoga but the postures and the moves actually kill some parts of your body. You feel the burn then the burn gets into an even hotter sensation.

When you start with the workouts, you’ll probably think that the people who go through the 90 day period of this workout are pure lunatics but that’s not how the story goes. The workouts are hard and very effective if you survive them.

P90X is a very effective workout and you must have already heard stories and watched videos of people transforming from a block of flab into an absolutely ripped look. P90X is a complete workout.

The word ‘complete’ here means that the whole program focuses on all parts of fitness – flexibility, core strength, agility, cardiovascular health, muscle mass and even a bit of Karate! Here’s a brief summary of the workouts:

Core Synergestics – Focuses on your core and abdominal area. One hour of good calorie burn along with increased core strength.

Plyometrics – Jump training at its best. You’ll move up, down, right and left as you go through some really great moves.

X Stretch – This is alternative to actually taking a day off. Instead of a break, you do bit of a stretch in this program. This could be the easiest routine out of the 12 but it’s by no means, ineffective.

Yoga X – These could be the best 90 minutes you had in a very long time (provided you survive them). Some great Yoga postures have been included that work on flexibility, core conditioning, balance and coordination. Initially this could be a very tough workout but it gets easier as you get into the routine.

Kenpo X – Some really creative Jet Li stuff! This isn’t a boring workout as you’ll be punching, upper-cutting and kicking. It’s also a very good calorie burn but it also teaches some good defense/attack moves!

Cardio X – Cardiovascular training as the name suggests. It’s a very good calori burner and most of the time you’ll be out of breath. But that’s the whole point of the workout. The intensity is kept high on purpose so you may get results at the end of 90 days.

Ab Ripper X – It’s only 17 minutes long but it’s jolly hard! You’ll be cursing Tony throughout these 17 minutes! There are no breaks and each exercise keeps pounding your abdominals from all angles.

The rest of the workouts are based on resistance training. There are a lot of push-ups, pull-ups, rows, curls, presses, squats, lunges and dips. The muscle groups are targeted from different angles making this a extremely effective workout. Here are the rest of the 5 workouts. 

• Shoulders & Arms
• Back & Biceps
• Chest, Shoulder and Triceps
• Legs & Back
• Chest & Back

So the more important question here is ‘whether you can make P90X work for you or not?’ The credibility of the program is not under question here but it’s YOU who is under the microscope. Can you put up with the grueling workouts that may burn on an average, 400 Calories per workout?

Can you manage an hour and half everyday from your busy schedule? Are you as fit as Tony Horton himself? If you can make it through the 90 days, you can be absolutely sure that there will be a significant change in your body.

Click here to learn more about P90X

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.

There are so many weight loss programs and exercises to choose from but the best one for you needs to encompass two things.

The first thing needs to be that it is enjoyable for you.

The second is the exercise you choose must make your body sweat. Not a dripping sweat workout but a moderate amount to let you know you is burning calories. The best exercises for losing weight encompass creativity and variety so you will stay interested in what you are doing.

For those that love to walk, this is the best exercises for losing weight for the beginner. It is the easiest to do and is the one of the most effective.

There are no restrictions on when you walk. You can pick any place to walk. No special equipment is needed. Walking will help take extra weight off the body and also boosts the cardiovascular system.

Using a stationary cycle is also effective in losing weight. It appears to function the same as walking but the rate at which one burns calories is much higher. You can easily use this machine at home while you are watching television or a movie or listening to your favorite CD. Cycling can be done in your spare time and burn some extra calories off your body in the process.

Aerobics are very useful as one of the best exercises for losing weight. They can take pounds off the muscles of the body.  It is like dancing but with exercise steps thrown in. The idea is to move the body to the flow of the music. It assists in raising the amount of activity to the muscles and raising the amount of brain function. It is important to stay fit by doing regular exercise but do not do these exercises to the point that it causes stress and anxiety.

The absolute best exercises for losing weight is interval training. This encompasses high and low resistance workouts throughout the workout. You can combine many exercises together to make a completely unique routine. The level of intensity can also change to meet the needs of the individual as they advance in their fitness level. You are in charge of the speed and variation of the entire interval workout.

For those who take on any of the best exercises for losing weight  it is essential to also take care of your diet.

It is true that your exercises will not be as effective if you are eating the wrong way or having too much calories each day. It is best to stay quiet about your intent to lose weight. Only those close to you should know about it to help you stay motivated. Motivation is so important in any exercise you plan to do. You cannot meet your goals without it.

A successful exercise plan should be one that has realistic, rational, and obtainable goals. It should never be set for the long term so you will not feel overwhelmed and give up on any of the best exercises for losing weight.

You see it being asked all over in places like yahoo answers and forums.

The problem is most of the answers given are written by idiots who know absolutely nothing about weight loss or fitness.

Before I answer the question “how can I lose weight fast”, we need to bust some myths.

Myth 1: Starving Yourself

To keep it short and not drone on about all of the reasons why you shouldn’t starve yourself, I’ll keep it simple. Starving yourself will temporarily lead to weight loss the problem is your body will quickly adjust to the lack of calories by slowing your metabolism.

Myth 2: Fad & Crash Diets

If anyone tells you that you can lose 25 lbs in 2 weeks they are misleading you. Is it possible? Yes, but 90% of it will be water not fat. Your goal is to lose fat is it not? Your body simply can’t burn that many calories without serious side effects. You would have to burn over 102,000 fat calories.

Myth 3: Take This Magic Pill

Hate to break it to you but there is no magic bullet, not Acai Berry or anything else. By the way for anyone interested in Acai Berry, just to let you in on a little secret but there is no research about Acai affecting weight loss.

So we come back to the question again “how can I lose weight fast?”

Well it comes down to those two dreaded words, diet and exercise.

I’m not going to go into all of the details on how to lose weight because it would take several pages of information to lay it out. To bottom line it for you though and leave you with some tips:

For your diet, start by cutting sugar out of your diet and add fiber to it. For exercise research has shown that weight training and interval training are the most effective means of fat burning.

I can’t tell you how many times I have answered the question “how can I lose weight fast” on yahoo answers trying to debunk all of the bad information out there. It really comes down to how dedicated you are to losing weight.

If you are serious then I would recommend a couple of guides that I personally have reviewed and I know that they are effective.

For beginners who want to learn how to properly diet I would recommend The Diet Solution. There is a lot of good advice in this guide about dieting and what to eat and what not to eat.

For people who are more dedicated and already eat well, I would recommend BeachBody’s Insanity. This is one of my favorite programs out there when it comes to exercising. The workout videos are nothing short of insane. The great part is you can keep your own pace but even going slow it still kicks your butt. Definitely top notch work and extremely effective exercises.

The question is, are you willing to put in the work to lose the weight? If you’re not then don’t bother to even go to those pages because you will just waste your money.

Cardio exercise is such a strange thing.  In theory, it should work so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn’t add up.

After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.

British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren’t previously exercising.

(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).

Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks.  That’s a lot of exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great – I was positively surprised by the results.

So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!

Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out…

The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.

The scientists think they know where things went sour.  They classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the “Compensators”
and the “Non-compensators”.

The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.

Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge “compensatory” increase in appetite experienced by this group.

Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio?  If it does, research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.

So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your appetite and calorie intake to see if you are “compensating” for your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.

As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research, interval training increases hormones called catecholamines.  And increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-burning benefits.

In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.

So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity exercise a go for your next workout program.

Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training

About the Author

Learn about the “Dark Side of Cardio” in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at Turbulence Training for Fat Loss. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulence Training for Fat Loss