WeSlim.com

Weight loss, diet and slimming techniques to lose weight safely

Burning calories is a slow process and while high level exercise can burn large quanities of calories quickly lesser activities done often can contribute nicely to your weight loss. Simple alternatives such as walking short distances rather driving driving, using stairs rather than elevators etc can all make strong contributions to losing weight if done regularly.

How To Determine How Many Calories You Are Burning

How many calories you are burning is very important for weight loss. You need to be able to accurately gauge how many calories are going in, and how many are going out through exercise. Machines usually have a reading on the monitor that displays how many calories you have burned, which is a pretty rough estimate. Online calories burned calculators can also help, and tell you how many you have burned given a specific exercise.

Different exercises have different burn rates. For example, walking wont burn the same as dancing or running. Calories burned is a great way to monitor and measure what you are doing and the intensity you are going at. If you weigh over 200 pounds and it takes you longer than an hour to burn 350 calories, then you likely aren’t working hard enough.

Using a heart rate monitor is the best and most effective way to calculate and keep an eye on how hard you are working and how many calories are being burned. A heart rate monitor with a strap that goes around your chest is the best kind, because the strap can accurately measure your heart beats precisely. Many heart rate monitors have straps that can be used for many different sizes of people, small or large.

If you are serious about exercise and calories burned, then you should definitely invest in a heart rate monitor. Machine calculations, such as those on a treadmill or elliptical machine are notoriously inaccurate. They may or may not calculate your age or weight, which are two very important factors for calories burned.

The only problem is that most heart rate monitors only calculate the amount burned for cardio exercise, not strength training. They are programmed in such a way that they can only accurately measure calories burned by assuming you are engaging in cardio exercise.

When calculating your calories burned without a machine, be sure that the calculation includes your weight, age, VO2 max, as well as your height. These all play an important part in your weight loss and how many calories you can burn.

When you breathe more, you burn more. So it makes sense to say that while you are breathing heavily during high intensity exercise – you will be burning many more calories than if you were just walking slowly.

The goal for burning calories is to burn enough so that you are challenging your body and making a significant difference, but not so much that you are starving yourself and not keep the nutrients you need.

• Increase the intensity a little bit. If you are on a treadmill, up the incline a few points. You will work harder and burn more.

• If you are walking outside, use walking poles. Nordic walking sticks can burn up to 40% more calories because you use your arms.

• Push your muscles and body just a bit harder than the last time.

• Do intervals at higher speeds to increase your burn.

• Exercise for just 5 minutes longer. 5 minutes can make such a huge difference in your fitness and burn rate, but you won’t even notice you did the 5 minutes extra.

• Use handweights while walking, running, or jogging.

• Consider weighted vests for all exercise, providing that you can still move with an extra 20 to 50 pound vest.