Fit and Youthful Life

Guest Author: tyord


If you have decided to go for a diet and exercising in order to lose your unwanted weight, then you are probably wondering what type of exercise is the best for you, so that you lose the extra pounds.

Generally, the best type of exercising for weight loss are the cardio trainings. Many people have probably noticed that if they have enough physical activity in their daily lives, they don’t put on weight. This is absolutely true.

1. Types of cardio training

Important to know is, that there are two types of cardio trainings – high intensity and low intensity training. Many people think, that the speed of the training does not matter, but as a matter of fact it does, and so if you do a high intensity training, you would burn fat much faster. The principle of the cardio trainings is that your pulse increases and you start burning calories. The higher your pulse is, the more calories you burn. And this is achieved only with high intensity training.

2. How much cardio is recommended

In order to lose weight, you need to do cardio trainings from 3 to 5 times a week and their duration should be about 30-40 minutes per session. Don’t worry, it’s not necessary to start with this workout at the very beginning. As a start you could do about 10-20 minutes cardio per session. With the time just increase the duration of your trainings. 

Another point you should keep in mind, while doing cardio, is the heart rate. It is recommended that you start your cardio  trainings at 60% of your maximum heart rate. You could calculate this by the following formula:

220 – your age = your max heart rate

When you’ve already got used to that training rythm, you could increase your heart rate up to 70% and more.

3. Cardio before or after weight training?

It is recommended that you make your cardio part of the training after the weight training. If you do it before that, you should keep in mind, that you actually start burning calories after the first 10 minutes. If you do it after the weight training – you start burning calories and fat immediately.

Apart from weight loss, the cardio trainings have many other benefits for your health. They tone your body, faster your metabolism, make you feel full of energy. Whether your main goal is to lose weight or not, you should keep in mind, that physical activity is the best thing you could do for your body, spirit and health!

If you want to learn more tips and tricks about weight loss and exercise, make sure you check:

The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide



Longevity and Health Now

Guest Author: Rando Meresmaa


I think it should be clear for everyone, that using cardio is essential for weight loss. It seems at last people realise that diets can´t work all by themselves. That is very good indeed. But there is so much confusion about cardio training in general. On expert says you should do steady state training, the other suggests intervals and so on. The average people are so confused that they muck up their cardio training.

A BIG reason why so many people fail to lose weight with cardio is that, they just don´t burn enough calories. People worry so much about what exercise or workout they should use. It is just silly if someone walks on the treadmill only a few miles per hour for 30 minutes and thinking that with “X” duration completed, they are assured to get the results they want.

Then there are the other group of folks, who do very short and intense workout, that they read in some bodybuilding magazine. Just because the workout is high in intensity and it is performed in intervals, they too think they are assured to get the results they want.

You don´t have to be a genius to figure out that you lose fat if you have a caloric deficit. So you need to burn more calories than you consume. It is very important to know how many calories you burn, not how you do it.Total calories burned is a product of INTENSITY times DURATION, not intensity OR duration.

If you focus to much on the intensity or to much on the duration, then you end up with fustrating results. The only way to find out what is the perfect cardio workout for you is to test it. Some like a more intense workout and some like a steady, but longer workout.

At the end of the day it does not matter what calories you burn or how you do it. What matters is how many calories you burned during the day.Remember that nutrition is the foundation on which every fat loss program is built. Many people increase their food intake at the same time as they start a cardio training program and that is a big mistake. Basically you put back all the calories you burned in the gym.

To lose weight you have to burn more calories then you consume. And cardio burns calories.

Simple!

Guest Author: Rando Meresmaa


The goal for anyone who wants to lose fat is to achieve maximum fat burning in the shortest time possible. It is very important to choose or create the right training program that is the most effective. There are a lot of discussions and arguments about what is more effective: long duration and low intensity workouts or high intensity workouts. This can be very confusing for people. A personal trainer in one gym suggests low intensity workouts and if you go to a different gym then a personal trainer there may suggest high intensity workouts.

So how much cardio is needed to burn fat?

As it is with so many other things, both sides have some truth in them. The low intensity aerobic exercise proponents say that this method is more effective in burning body fat because if your heart rate gets out of the target heart rate, you stop burning fat for fuel and start using carbohydrates for fuel. That is why so many experts promote this method.

But the problem with this method is that if your exercise is low in intensity, then you just do not burn enough calories. If you don´t burn enough calories then you will not lose fat. It is better to use more intense exercises in your workouts because they burn more calories. High intensity aerobic exercise can use as much as 65% of the body’s energy needs in the form of carbohydrate. Burning calories is more important than what you use for fuel. The harder you work out the more calories you burn.

But high intensity exercises are only effective if you can maintain it long enough to burn more calories then with low intensity. To burn calories effectively your workout has to last from 25-60 minutes. If you do a very high intensity workout but you it only lasts for 15 minutes then it is not effective. The trick is to find the right tempo. The most effective method to burn calories is a relatively high intensity for 30 minutes or so. The only way to find out what is the most effective zone for you, is to find it out yourself. There is no magic number. Trial and error!

Guest Author: The_Trainer


1. When you do weight training first, you have more energy and strength for that weight training.

I know cardio junkies won’t want to hear this, but intense, QUALITY weight training is actually MORE effective for fat loss than cardio training. Why the emphasis on quality? Well, if you go to the gym and just flail around with light weights for 30 minutes, it’s not really going to be very effective for fat loss.

However, if you really put some effort into it and train hard, the metabolic boost you get from weight training (in terms of not only calories burned while doing it but the increase in metabolism after AND the increase in muscle mass you get from weight training) is greater than the boost you get from cardio training. And, when compared to slow, long-duration cardio training, that boost is MUCH greater.

So by performing your weight training FIRST, while you’re fresh, you’re going to have more energy to put into it and you’re going to be stronger. This will increase metabolic and muscle mass stimulation and therefore overall fat loss. It’s a win-win situation!

That’s not to say you can’t do a couple of minutes of cardio as a general warm-up before starting into the weights…just don’t do an entire cardio session before weight training. Always keep in mind that the weight training is the REAL engine behind your fat loss efforts.

And if THAT isn’t enough to convince you to do cardio after weights, I’ve got another reason for you…

2. Performing weight training first decreases available blood sugar and puts the body in “fat burning” mode.

When you train with weights, you’re performing short, intense muscle contractions. Glucose (blood sugar) is the preferred fuel for driving these intense contractions. As you go through your workout, your body gradually uses up its readily-available supply of sugars and starts mobilizing fat for energy.

Here’s the key…mobilizing bodyfat for energy is a process that takes time. If you do your cardio first, your body will be initially working on that blood sugar before getting started on the bodyfat. By the time you’re done with cardio and move to weights, THAT is when you’re in the optimal fat-burning mode.

But the problem is, fat is NOT an efficient fuel for weight training. By doing cardio first, you use up all the “good” stuff for weight training and force your body to make do with a less powerful fuel source. Your weight training workouts will decrease in quality and your cardio efforts won’t be as effective for achieving fat-burning, which is your primary goal!

So basically, you’re shooting yourself in the foot TWICE!

Think of your body as a hybrid gas-electric car. This car uses gas to provide more power for acceleration and electricity to provide long-term power for maintaining speed.

Now think of blood sugar as gas and weight training as powerful acceleration. When you press the pedal (performing weight training), you’re going to get much better acceleration when you’re using the proper fuel (i.e. gas).

If you try and power the acceleration with electricity, you’ll go forward but not nearly as quickly as if you were using gas.

The bottom line is this…perform your weight training first so you use up the “fast” energy first. Then, by the time you hit the cardio, you’re ALREADY in fat-burning mode and every single second you’re doing that cardio is going to be burning more fat than if you did it first.

—

These two reasons apply no matter if you’re doing slower, long-duration cardio or high-intensity interval training (which I recommend). The key thing to keep in mind is that WEIGHT TRAINING is what’s going to help you change your body FAST…cardio is a useful tool for improving your results but it’s NOT what drives your fat-loss results.

And that being said, if you absolutely feel you MUST do your cardio first, I’m NOT going to tell you it’s the worst thing in the world…the fact that you’re doing SOMETHING trumps doing nothing ANY day of the week!

But if you’re looking for maximum impact for the time and effort you’re putting your training, DEFINITELY hit the weights first and cardio after.

If you’re interested in more articles and information on fat-loss, interval training and programs, check out the following links:

How To Lose Fat NOW

Gain Muscle & Loss Fat





Look 10 Years Younger