Aim to burn 300-500 calories per day through cardio exercise
When it comes to losing weight rather quickly, cardio is king. With a balanced meal plan and performing cardio, you can lose up to 2 or more pounds per week. Over the course of 1 year, a person can safely lose up to 100 pounds of body fat.
Cardio is short for cardiovascular exercise. It also known as aerobic exercise/aerobic training. This type of exercise is designed to raise one’s heart rate to a level/zone where the body burns fat. Cardio comes in many forms. These forms include walking, jogging, running, biking, Stairmaster, Elliptical, swimming and more.
Cardio, along with balanced nutrition, has been proven to be the quickest way to lose fat. Cardio is more effective at quickly reducing total body weight than either resistance training combined with cardio or resistance training alone. This was proven in a 2011 study between cardio only participants and cardio and resistance training groups of people. That November 2011 study revealed that cardio was more effective than resistance training for the reduction of fat and body mass in previously sedentary, non-diabetic, overweight or obese adults. Although resistance training was more effective for lean body mass gains than cardio, resistance training did not significantly reduce either fat mass or total body mass.
This study showed that cardio participants spent about 30 min’s/day/wk, on either the treadmill, elliptical and stationary bike, performing exercises to raise their heart rate to the 65-80% of their max target heart rate. Each week the participants increased their intensity a bit. The duration of the study was 8-12 weeks. Another shows that out of all the different types of exercise, a moderate level of cardio is the most effect for reduction of total body weight, belly fat, and improved liver function.
The results from these studies were similar to my own body transformation experience.
For nearly 16 weeks (September 1, 2010 – January 1, 2011), I exclusively performed cardio to lose weight. I lost a total of 32lbs (losing about 2 pounds per week) in those 16 weeks. On average, I ran about 3 miles every other day, which total about 500 calories burned in 30 min’s. Using cardio, I was able to lose a lot fat (and preserve some muscle) in a relatively short amount of time. I found performing cardio, specifically running, cost effective, easy to add to my daily schedule, to be healthy for my heart and body, and gave me a solid foundation to build muscle through my strength training program.
Recommendation:
Using cardio machines, aim to burn about 300-500 calories per session. Always enter your accurate age and weight into the machine. Intense cardio should last about 15 to20 minutes, and moderate cardio should not last more than 45 minutes. The key to cardio (and weight training) is progressive resistance.
Look for ways to increase the level of intensity from week to week. For example, if you typically do 30 minutes on level 40 on the Stairmaster, do 30 min’s of HIIT (30 seconds of a intense level, like level 80, then 1 minute of low intensity, like level 25). Do as many rounds as you can for 30 minutes. This can be applied to any cardio machine. Burning 300 to 500 calories per day will put your body in a fat burning state.