The Fat Burner - Top Ten Exercises

When putting together your program to burn fat, choosing which exercises can make a big difference in how many calories you burn. It’s also important to realize certain exercises will help you burn fat faster than others - even if you burn fewer calories.

Generally speaking, a good exercise program should include resistance and cardio training together. The resistance training, while not burning as many calories, will help to stay lean and look better. Additionally, added muscle mass will help you burn a small amount of calories throughout the day and you will look more toned. More muscle will allow you to burn more calories during your cardio workouts since part of the calculation to determine calories burned is how much you weight – more muscle makes you heavier – just another reason not to worry about what the scale says so much as your body fat percentage.

That said, it’s the cardio component that burns the most calories so you won’t find many resistance or weight training exercises in the Top Ten Best Fat Burner Exercises. Cardio refers to any low resistance exercise done continuously for more than 20 minutes. You should be breathing – not too hard - and sweating to get the best effects. Typical cardio exercises are walking, running, bicycling, basketball, tennis, cross country skiing, etc…

To burn fat, try to keep your heart rate in the Fat Burning Zone. Use this formula: 220 - (Your Age) x (.75). Example: if you are 45 years old, the formula would be: 220 – 45 x .75 = 131.25 or 132 rounded off. That your optimum fat burning heart rate – go lower, and the fat stays – go higher and you’re conditioning, but not burning as much fat.

To burn fat you need different exercises than ones you would use to condition your body for hard aerobic exercise. The reason is that if you start out running, for example, your body immediately needs lots of energy that can only come from the glucose found in your blood. It takes about twenty minutes of running to burn off your glucose supply. After this point, you can feel very uncomfortable – called hitting the wall – and want to stop. If you do, you’ll have burned some calories, but very little fat. Fat burning only occurs AFTER twenty minutes of hard aerobic exercise.

Walking briskly, on the other hand, does not require so immediate energy, so your body starts to break down fat in order to supply the demand – your blood glucose is held in reserve for “emergencies” – like if you need to run.

To get the best effects, you should get 30 to 45 minutes of cardio exercise 4 to 5 times per week – even more won’t hurt you as long as it’s low impact. Also, when can be as important as how: it’s best to do cardio is in the morning before eating – drink some water first – or after your resistance training. The reason for this has to do with your stores of glucose or glycogen (stored sugars). Glycogen levels are low in the morning meaning you will immediately start off using your fat to produce the energy you need. The rest of the day, you need to burn off that glycogen supply first and 20 minutes of weight training will work just fine. So, resistance training first, then cardio.

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