Weight Loss Articles

No weight reduction plan would be complete without a sensible exercise program.

Through exercise, you will be:

- Maintaining a sustained elevated metabolism, by preserving your lean muscle mass.

- Increasing your metabolism: If you train with the right intensity, you'll be burning calories for several hours even After your training session.

- Increasing and stimulating your fat burning enzymes.

A lot has been said about the best ways to lose fat through exercise:

Some would say that aerobics is the way to go, while those who favor weight training would tell you to go for high reps and minimize your rest time between sets.

But in order for you to burn fat, you should know about the one paramount rule upon which all effective fat loss workouts are to be built, and that is:

Resistance Training in the Target Zone...

If you read my article on The Target Heart Rate to Exercise at, you'd be knowing that an effective fat burning workout should be done at an intensity of 75% - 85% MaxHR

Now when it comes to the TYPE of the workout, you might be asking yourself: What KIND of exercise should I be doing to burn fat?

While trend and popular belief usually opt for cardio as the prime choice for fat burning, you should accept that:

RESISTANCE TRAINING IS THE BEST WAY TO BURN FAT - PERIOD

That means you have to hit the weights to burn fat.

The reason is very simple: As you might already know, one major key to efficient fat loss is lean muscle mass; the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism will be, the more calories you'll burn throughout the day.

So whether you preserve your muscle mass or not while dieting can really determine whether you'll actually lose fat or not (and keep it off).

One of the main reasons people regain all the weight (and more) once they get off the diet is that they've lost too much muscle mass, and thus slowed down their metabolisms.

This is where weight training steps in:

Weight training will Prevent the loss of lean body mass, Even at times where caloric intake is reduced to very low levels; a task that cardio training fails to accomplish.

Now those who favor cardio over weight training justify themselves by saying that weight training burns less calories than cardio.

HOWEVER,

Your goal should be to generate a CONTINUOUS fat burning effect. You are transforming your body into a machine that burns fat 24/7. And that can only be accomplished through weight training.

Studies have in fact shown that while a person's metabolism returned to its normal calorie-burning rate within an hour after aerobic exercise, it took up to 15 hours to return to normal after weight training.

Can you imagine maintaining that fat burning effect for 15 hours after your training session?

That fact alone should let you think twice before opting for aerobics as your main fat burning option.

Furthermore, your weight training sessions Themselves can be as calorie consuming as, if not More than, a typical cardio or aerobic session.

How can that be done?

Well, simply by Maintaining your Target Heart Rate of 75% - 85% MaxHR Throughout your whole training session.

Therefore, you should stop asking yourself: How fast should I go? Should I be doing high repetitions? How much should I rest between sets? etc? and rather start focusing on staying in your Target Zone.

That way, you'll be able for example to determine your rest time between sets; after you finish your set, you watch your Heart Rate on your heart rate Monitor. Once it drops back to 75% MaxHR, then it's time to hit the next set.

So ditch the standard traditional approaches that preach stuff like: "Rest only 1 minute between sets."

It simply doesn't work that way. It's really up to your body: You could be recovering in as little as 30 seconds or as much as 5 minutes; so just keep an eye on your heart rate monitor, and you'll be able to determine the pace of your workout.

To sum it all up:

Any effective fat loss program should rely on weight training. Such approach will help you burn fat:

- By preserving your lean muscle mass and burning fat throughout the day.

- By actually burning calories during the training session itself and increasing fat oxidation for several following hours, If done at an intensity of 75% - 85% MaxHR.