Which way to burn fat the best?
February 23, 2010 by Paul
Filed under Weight Loss
What is the best way to burn fat?
Many people ask that question when they need to lose or just control their weight. The answer to that question is both short and long at the same time. The short answer is one that is somewhat obvious, and that is to exercise. The best way to burn fat is to get moving by doing something challenging. To burn fat, you must burn off excess calories. Calorie burn comes from activity and getting your body moving.
The kind of exercise and how to go about doing it is where the complications can come in. The best way to burn fat is through a combination of cardiovascular exercise and resistance exercise (weight lifting).
Most of the time people will think of fat burning and just think of doing cardio exercise alone. Doing cardio will burn some calories but that is not the absolute best way to burn off the unwanted fat.
When you do cardio exercises such as walking or running your body will burn off fat as a fuel source at a higher rate than it would if you were just resting.
One main thing to focus on to burn of the most fat for the time and energy you are putting in is keeping the intensity up. Truthfully, you need to try to puch yourself outside your comfort zone. If you are sure that you can keep going at the pace you are exercising at, then there is a very good chance that you are not exercising hard enough to burn a decent amount of calories and make the effort worth your time in the long run.
While you are doing your workout there should be a little bit of doubt creeping into the back of your mind causing you to wonder whether or not you can keep up the pace for the duration of your routine.
You may be reading this and asking yourself, “Why do I need to push myself like that when I have read that I can just walk or jog to lose weight?” The reason for that is because for some reason many publications only like to give you partially true information.
It is true, it is possible to lose weight by just walking. The thing that no one tells you is exactly how much walking you need to do to burn enough calories to lose weight. It might be 2 to 4 miles needed to see the kind of progress you seek. A casual stroll may burn calories, but not enough for you to exercise for just one hour and be done. Increasing the intensity (speed, incline, step size, etc.) causes your body to work harder to complete the work. When you exercise harder you burn more calories. More calories burned means the fat melts away faster.
The next time you visit your gym, bump up the speed on your treadmill if you are running. Add more of an uphill angle on the treadmill if you are walking. Move the resistance up on the pedals of your elliptical or stairmaster machine. Do something to make the exercise a little harder and your body will thank you afterwards when the weight is gone.
Another thing to help ensure that you are doing your best to burn fat is resistance training. When you weight train properly, you can easily burn an equal amount of calories as a good cardio session. On top of that initial calorie burn, you will continue to burn calories at an accelerated rate for several hours AFTER the workout is complete. It is for this reason that if you only have time for cardio or weight training, the weight training should take precedence. Finding out exactly what exercises to do and how much weight to lift is a lengthy topic I will cover by itself, but just know that the best way to burn fat fast is to get weight lifting into your routine and keep it there.
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