The Most Important Secrets of Fat Loss Through Aerobic Exercise
We exercise for a variety of reasons – weight loss, to build muscle tone, to increase strength, to strengthen our heart, to prepare for a sport, etc. Most of us over the age of 50 exercise to improve our health and fitness. This usually includes most of the things I just listed.
If one of your main goals is to lose weight, you may want to look at the type and amount of aerobic exercise you're doing. Aerobic exercises like walking, jogging, biking, and swimming are most useful for strengthening our heart and can be very effective in helping us to reduce body fat. You should be aware that I didn't say "lose weight" for a very specific reason. We can go on a low calorie diet and lose weight, but it might not help us to be healthier. That's because without proper exercise we may actually lose weight, but not lose unhealthy fat. And, on the flip side, increasing the amount of exercise we do may actually prevent us from losing as much weight. Can this be a good thing? Absolutely. When I started training for triathlons back in the 80's, I lost quite a few inches from various body measurements, but I hardly lost any weight. The reason for this was that the aerobic exercise I was doing helped me burn fat and replaced it with muscle. By volume, muscle weighs more than fat. The types and intensity of aerobic exercises that I was doing to train for triathlons wasn't ideal for fat loss. What I'm going to talk about here is aerobic exercise targeted primarily toward fat loss.
If you have excess body fat that you need to lose to be healthy you basically need to do two things. One, is to make sure that the amount of calories you burn each day exceeds the calories you take in. That requires that the amount and kind of foods that you eat need to be carefully controlled. One of the reasons that I didn't lose more weight and body fat when I was training for triathlons was that I was eating a diet extremely high in carbohydrates in order to give my body enough of the right kind of fuel to do long distance running, swimming, and biking. This is not the ideal diet to help a person lose fat.
The second thing necessary for optimum fat loss is to make sure that you exercise in such a way that as many of the calories that you burn come from stored fat as is possible. Again, my triathlon training wasn't ideal for this because I was trying to train my body to utilize carbohydrates as efficiently as possible and vastly increase my aerobic capacity. I won't go into the physiological reason here, but let me assure you that the diet and exercise routine for a long distance athlete is different from that of someone whose main goal is to lose fat.
So, how do you tailor your aerobic exercise program to help you lose the maximum amount of fat possible? I'm glad you asked. First of all, make sure you're on a relatively low fat diet. This will help make sure that your body doesn't have too many fat calories available from food to burn as fuel. Now, for the most important secret for fat burning using aerobic exercise. You have to make sure that you do your aerobic exercise in the maximum fat burning zone. This is determined by estimating your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age is usually a good estimate). Then determine your fat burning target heart rate (THR) zone by multiplying your maximum heart rate by 55% and 65% to get the range you should keep your heart rate in during your aerobic exercise. Here's an example: I'm 60 years old, so to determine my estimated maximum heart rate I take 220 minus 60, which is 160. I then take the 160 and multiply it by 55% and 65%. This gives me 88 and 104, which is the range I need to keep my heart rate in while doing aerobic exercise in order to maximize my fat loss. Another important thing to realize is that to optimize fat loss, you should do this type of aerobic exercise for 45 – 60 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. You don't have to start with that much, but your goal should be to get up to those times.
To keep your heart rate within your appropriate range you will need to check it frequently by taking your pulse. It's very important that your heart rate stays within your range. If it goes too low you won't get any benefit. And, if it goes too high you'll get benefits, but they won't be the fat burning benefits that you specifically want.
Walking is an excellent form of aerobic exercise to use for maximum fat burning. It's easy to do almost anywhere, and it requires nothing more than a good pair of walking shoes and appropriate clothing for your exercise environment. If you use walking, try to make sure that you're walking in an area that is relatively flat. If there are hills, it becomes very difficult to walk at a consistent pace and keep your heart rate within the desired zone. A treadmill and heart rate monitor can be quite useful in helping you to stay in your zone.
Many excellent forms of aerobic exercise aren't very good for maximum fat loss because they raise your heart rate too high. Things like aerobic dance, jazzercise, stair climbing machines, bicycle spinning classes, etc. are great exercises for strengthening your heart, but they push your heart rate too high for maximum fat loss.
Another nice thing about exercising at a rate that will give you maximum fat loss is that once you lose the fat you'll be in much better shape to use your aerobic exercise for strengthening your heart even more. You will be in a much better position to workout at higher heart rates if you want to.
So, if your main goal right now is to lose unhealthy body fat, you should determine your ideal fat burning heart rate zone and start doing an aerobic exercise that will keep your heart rate in that zone.
©2005 - 2006 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS
You can get more info by Tom about exercise, fitness and weight loss at fitness-after-50.com
The Secrets About Spot Reduction Exercises They Don't Want You to Know
One of the areas I see exploited regularly in the press and in ads is the idea that there are special exercises to help you reduce fat in a specific part of your body.
Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you folks, but the secret is that there aren't any exercises that can effectively reduce fat to just one part of your body. In other words, if you want to reduce the fat in your abdomen, doing all the sit ups in the world isn't going to accomplish that for you. If you do lots of properly performed crunches, you can increase the strength of your stomach muscles. But, unless you do other things to reduce the layer of fat over those muscles, you will simply have a set of well camouflaged six pack abs that no one will ever be able to see. The same goes for your legs, your butt, or any other part of your body. Doing exercises to try to reduce the fat in those specific areas just doesn't work.
So now you're confused. Why do all these "exercise experts" keep writing about how their video or special exercise book will allow you to get rid of fat in specific areas by just doing a few simple and quick exercises? It's very simple, they want you to buy their product so they can make lots of money. Rather than basing their programs on sound exercise principles, they base them on the psychological fact that most humans want to do things the easiest and quickest way they can.
Given the following scenario, which do you think most people would choose to do? Someone tells you that you need to do an hour of aerobic exercise and strength training every day and watch what you eat in order to get rid of unwanted fat. Someone else tells you that you can get rid of the fat around your tummy just by doing a few special exercises that will only take a few minutes a day. You probably hope that the few minutes a day will be enough. And so you and everyone else goes out and buys the special program, video, or piece of equipment. Well, guess what? You've just been exploited, because these gimmicks don't work.
What is the secret to losing fat in specific parts of your body then? The secret is that there is no real secret. It is physiologically impossible to get the body to lose fat in one specific area by just doing exercises for that part of the body. Most of us do have a tendency to gain weight in certain parts of our bodies first. Often times women will gain weight in their hips and thighs. Men gain weight in the abdominal area. As you gain more weight it will usually spread itself out throughout the body. When you try to lose weight, the process is reversed. So, in order to lose weight in one specific area, you will have to cause the body to lose weight all over.
If you are really interested in losing body fat there is a very simple formula. Calories taken in by the body must be less the calories expended by the body. For every 3,500 calories you expend over the amount your body needs to function, you will lose one pound. Conversely, for every 3,500 in excess calories you take in that the body doesn't need, you will gain a pound. It is a little more complicated than that, but not much. If you want to lose fat and keep or create muscle tone and strength, you should do some strength training (weight lifting) several times per week. Additionally, you should do aerobic exercise (walking, swimming, biking, etc.) almost every day to help burn calories and keep your heart (the most important muscle in the body) in good shape. It's also a good idea to do some regular stretching to keep you flexible. Along with the these things you also need to watch what, how, and when you eat. If you combine all of these guidelines then you can lose weight and fat, and become healthier. If you want to try some of the gimmick programs out there you will probably lose some money, but not much else.
©2005 - 2006 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS
You can get more info by Tom about exercise, fitness and weight loss at fitness-after-50.com
Simple Exercises for Couch Potatoes
Have you ever had the chance to observe an animal in the wild up close? Did they look over weight? Probably not. Why do you think that is? It’s because they get all the exercise they need in their regular daily lives. They don’t need to join a health club or buy expensive exercise equipment. Everything they need to stay in shape is in their environment.
Generally, modern day humans seem think that they must do some extraordinary things to keep their bodies in shape. If you are a professional athlete or body builder, that may be true. But, for those of us that just want to stay fit, the challenge is different. It requires a little bit of a mind set change, but it’s a lot easier and more convenient than you might think.
Do you watch television? Do you consider yourself something of a “couch potato”? Many of us spend a few hours a day watching something on the TV. Well, guess what? If you watch TV that means that you are subjected to commercials. Commercial breaks, on average, last anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes and there are at least 6 to 8 of these during every hour of television. That means that for every hour you are in front of a TV, you have at least 20 minutes you can devote to the pursuit of your fitness.
Let’s look at some of the things you can do while commercials are trying to get you to buy the latest low fat snack food or explain to you why you really have to have that new car. While seated in your easy chair or on the couch, you can raise your arms over your head or reach down toward the floor and stretch your shoulders, your back, your arms, or your legs. Also, if you keep some stretch bands next to that easy chair, you could pick them up during a commercial break and do some repetitions to strengthen your arms and legs. If you push yourself to get up from that favorite chair, you could get down on the floor and do a few sit ups or push ups, or you could do a variety of different floor stretches. The point is, that with little or no equipment or room, you can turn those wasted minutes during commercials into valuable exercise time that can help you become more fit.
Animals in the wild, and even our household pets, know how to make the best use of their time and circumstances to get the exercise they need to stay fit. There is no reason why we can’t do the same thing just by utilizing the wasted time we spend in front of our TV’s during commercials. And, if you want to get really motivated and fit, you can expand the idea of stretching and exercising to include the entire time you are in front of a TV. For many of us, that will give us hours every week in which to fit in the exercise we didn’t think we had time for.
©2005 - 2006 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS
You can get more info abiut exercise and fitness from Tom at
fitness-after-50.com
