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Fat Burning Exercises
Before describing some simple fat burning exercises, let's try to understand how the body works:
- 10% of the calories we burn in a day is by processing the nutrients we consume.
- Muscle cells burn calories faster than fat cells. So, the more muscles you have, the more calories you'll burn.
- When you deprive your body of essential calories, it responds by slowing down your metabolism to conserve fuel.
- Aerobic activities boost fat burning - for up to an hour after we stop them. So, we don't really have to exercise to burn calories, any kind of movement, walking, climbing stairs, to mowing the lawn will do the trick.
- Body composition would be a better indicator than body weight, since muscle tissue is heavier than fat tissue. By replacing fat with muscle, we change the composition and shape of our body.
Fat Facts
You know that fat makes your food taste good, but did you know that:
- Fat molecules slow digestion, giving us a constant energy supply. This means we are less likely to feel hungry between meals.
- Fat is an important part of every cell membrane. It helps absorb vitamins A, D, E and K. These vitamins are essential for better vision, stronger bones, a healthy heart and quick blood clotting respectively.
- Cholesterol is found in foods that contain fat and is the raw material for building hormones that control fertility.
Does this mean that we can binge on fatty foods? Of course not! You also have to eat the right kinds of fat - monounsaturated fat and omega3 fatty acid. These are risk-free fats. Monounsaturated fats lowers heart disease risk by lowering total and LDL (bad) cholesterol, without lowering HDL (good) cholesterol. This is found in canola and olive oil, olives, avocados and most nuts, including almonds, filberts, macadamias, peanuts, pecans, cashews and pistachios. Omega 3 fatty acid reduces stroke and heart disease risk. It lowers total and LDL cholesterol and raises HDL cholesterol. It is found in fish (salmon, herring, anchovies, and sardines), dark green leafy vegetables, and soybean and canola oils. Eat fish few times a week, but don't fry it.
The key here is to eat the right types of fat and not to eat more fat than your body really needs. To calculate the number of fat grams you can eat, multiply the number of calories you consume daily by the percentage of calories from fat you'd like your diet to contain and divide by nine. For example, let's say you consume about 1800 calories and the percentage of calories from fat you'd like your diet to contain is 30% or .3. This means you can eat about 60 grams of fat. Nearly every major medical organization recommends that both men and women get no less than 15% of calories from fat which would be about 25 to 30 grams for a 1,500 to 1,800 calorie-a-day eating plan.
If you do have more fat than necessary, how can you burn it? Make a few uncomplicated changes to your lifestyle, and you're on your way:
- Eat breakfast! Start by making the all-important decision to eat breakfast. Eating breakfast revs up your metabolism.
- Eat smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day. It's less fattening, as long as you monitor the total calorie intake and your energy level remains steady throughout the day.
- Get moving! Work in your garden, do chair push-ups, dance, walk your dog, anything to get the muscles working.
- Add more muscle. This is the fastest way to tone the body, because the more muscle you have, the quicker you burn fat. The best way to shape up is to incorporate strength and toning exercise with aerobic exercises. Arm yourself with these tips and win your battle against fat.
Medical Disclaimer: These articles are presented for general informational purposes only. It is not the intention of this article or any others on this web site to provide specific medical advice, but rather to provide users with information to better understand their health. Specific medical advice should be obtained with a thorough physical examination from your health care provider. Consult with a qualified physician for diagnosis and for answers to your personal queries.
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