When you take in more calories than your body can use, the excess energy gets stored as fat. If this extra fat is not burned off, it accumulates and leads to obesity. Being obese can cause a myriad of health problems and weigh heavily on your self-esteem. Finding the
best fat burning exercises can help combat obesity and improve your overall health.
Cardiovascular Exercise to Lose Weight
Cardiovascular exercise raises the heart rate and revs up the metabolism. This is why its the most effective way to lose weight. For optimum results, it is recommended that you do at least one hour of moderate to high intensity cardio five days a week.
There are plenty of ways to get the cardio you need to drop unwanted pounds. The trick is to find exercises you enjoy doing so you can stick to your routine. Here are some ideas:
biking
running
brisk walking
jogging
aerobics
kickboxing
playing sports
swimming
dancing
hiking
stair climbing
jump rope
If you are new to exercise, you may not be physically able to work out for more than a few minutes at a time. The most important thing is that you get off the couch and do something. Eventually, youll be able to increase the amount of time you exercise.
When you do the same workout for weeks at a time, your body will become accustomed to the exercises and they may no longer produce results. To prevent stalled weight loss efforts, vary your workout routine periodically. For instance, if you run every day, shock your muscles by swimming or kickboxing a few times per month.
Resistance Training to Combat Obesity
Since muscle requires more fuel than fat, the more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories your body will burn. Even when your body is at rest, muscle mass will help you burn more calories than fat. You can increase your lean muscle mass by incorporating resistance training into your workouts.
During resistance training exercises, you can use dumbbells, weight machines and resistance bands. You can also do exercises like push ups, pull ups and triceps dips. These types of exercises use your own body weight as resistance to help tone muscles.
Follow a Sensible Diet to Lose Weight
The only way to lose weight is to burn off more calories than you take in. No matter how much you exercise, if your diet is full of processed and sugary foods, you wont lose weight. A sensible eating plan will not require you to drink cabbage juice or starve yourself all day.
These types of overly-restrictive diets slow your metabolism, damage your health and stall your efforts to lose weight. Any diet plan that you follow should promote healthy eating and allow enough calories for your body to function properly.
When you are trying to shed weight, it matters where your calories come from. Most of your caloric intake should be from healthy sources like lean meats, fish, poultry, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts and vegetables. Between meals, snack on raw nuts, nut butters and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Examples of sensible meals to lose weight include:
Baked Chicken, steamed green beans and carrots.
Large garden salad topped with grilled salmon.
Hamburger steak with steamed cauliflower and carrots.
Turkey sausage, and sauted spinach and mushrooms.
Grilled salmon, beets and asparagus.
Grilled perch, steamed carrots and broccoli
Being overweight can ruin your health and your self-esteem. If you are serious about blasting fat, a combination of cardiovascular exercise, resistance training and sensible eating will do the trick.
