Get the Body of Your Dreams with Fat Loss Factor Principles

Fat Loss Factor contains guidelines for a quick healthy lifestyle plan that can help anyone in any physical condition to lose unwanted belly fat. From the first principle of preparing for success to the last one, FLF implements a lifestyle of fitness, eating right for your body, and the mental attitude that it takes to reach your goal weight. The book is chock full of practical, down to earth advice.

Fat Loss Factor starts by measuring your basic statistics including weight, and body fat percentage. You are also asked to get photographs of yourself at the start so you can monitor your progress through the program. You’re advised to check your clothing at the beginning too, because you’ll likely find it to fit more loosely as you apply the principles of the program. Waist measurements are important too: women should ideally be around thirty two inches while a thirty five inch waist is ideal for men.

The program doesn’t take a miracle approach to get what it promises: a lean, healthy body that you can be proud of. These goals are reached through the consistent practice of proven principles of fitness and health. For example, the book stipulates early on that a change in eating habits is essential to your physical goals. Eating healthy foods that promote fat loss, metabolism, and energy is equally important to following the exercise regimen prescribed in the book.

Once your body is cleansed and fueled by natural foods, you are introduced into some basic fat loss principles for exercise. According to the book, building muscle is essential to burning fat. That’s right, you won’t need any diet pills or other trendy supplements to get the body you want. The book explains how muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, giving you the ability to burn fat even when you’re not working out. By working in sets and supersets, Fat Loss Factor guides you through basic exercises that will build the muscle you need without bulking up.

By the time you reach the fourth principle of fat loss, you will find out that traditional cardiovascular routines are not what you want to do for your exercise. Citing scientific research from around the world, Fat Loss Factor urges exercising in bursts or what is called burst training. By alternating between high intensity and low intensity intervals, your body burns more fat and your workout is much shorter!

Readers will find Fat Loss Factor an entertaining and informative read that will motivate them to avoid weight loss and fitness gadgets and gimmicks and steer them toward practical fat loss methods that work.

Have a look at Fat Loss Factor for yourself 

Fat Burning Tip #1

Fat Burning Tip #1: Incorporate a Mix of Low, Medium and High Intensity Cardio Exercise
 
You may be confused about exactly how hard to work during cardio. You may even think that high intensity exercise is the only way to go. After all, you can burn more calories and, even better, you don't have to spend as much time doing it. But having some variety can help you stimulate all of your different energy systems, protect you from overuse injuries, and help you enjoy your workouts more.

High Intensity Cardio
 
For our purposes here, high intensity cardio falls between about 80-90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) or, if you're not using heart rate zones, about a 6 to 8 on this perceived exertion scale. What this translates to is exercise at a level that feels challenging and leaves you too breathless to talk much. You're not going all out, as in sprinting as fast as you can.

There's no doubt that some high intensity training work can be helpful for weight loss as well as improving endurance and aerobic capacity. For example, a 150-lb. person would burn about 225 calories after running at 6 mph for 30 minutes. If this person walked at 3.5 mph for that same length of time, he would burn 85 to 90 calories. But, the number of calories you can burn isn't the whole story. If you do too many high intensity workouts every week, you risk:

• Overtraining
• Overuse injuries
• Burnout
• Inconsistent workouts
• Growing to hate exercise

Not only that but, if you don't have much experience with exercise, you may not have the conditioning or the desire for breathless and challenging workouts. And if you have some kind of medical condition or injury, forget about doing high intensity training (or any kind of training) without checking with your doctor first.

If you're doing several days of cardio each week, which is what is recommended for weight loss, you would probably want 1-2 workouts to fall into the high intensity range. You can use other workouts to target different areas of fitness (like endurance) and allow your body to recover.
Some examples of high intensity workouts:

• A 20-minute workout at a fast pace
  You can use any activity or machine, but the idea is to stay in the high intensity work zone throughout the workout. You'll find that 20 minutes is usually the recommended length for this kind of workout and most people wouldn't want to go much longer than that. 
• Interval Training
  A great way to incorporate high intensity training without doing it continuously is by doing intervals. Alternate a hard segment (e.g., running at a fast pace for 30 to 60 seconds) with a recovery segment (e.g., walking for 1 to 2 minutes). Repeat this series for the length of the workout, usually around 20 to 30 minutes. You can learn more in my Interval Training Workouts.

Moderate Intensity Cardio
 
There are a variety of definitions of what moderate intensity exercise is, but it typically falls between about 70-80% of your MHR (a level 4 to 6 on this perceived exertion scale). The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) often recommends this level of intensity in its exercise guidelines. The lower end of this range usually incorporates the 'fat burning zone.' That means can carry on a conversation without much difficulty and you feel pretty comfortable with what you're doing.
Moderate intensity workouts have some great benefits such as:

• Comfort -- Hard workouts are, well, hard. It takes time to build up the endurance and strength to handle challenging exercise. Moderate workouts allow you to work at a more comfortable pace, which means you may be more consistent with your program.
• Better health -- Even modest movement can improve your fitness while lowering your risk of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.
• More choices -- High intensity workouts will usually involve some kind of impact or, at the least, a fast pace. But, you can usually get up into the more moderate heart rate zones with a variety of activities, providing you work hard enough. Even raking leaves or shoveling snow, if you do it vigorously enough, can fall into that category.

For weight loss purposes, you would likely want the majority of your cardio workouts to fall into this range. Some examples:

• Walking 10,000 steps a day
• A 30 to 45-minute cardio machine workout
• A brisk walk
• Riding a bike at a medium pace

Low Intensity Activity
 
Low intensity exercise is considered to be below about 60-70% of your MHR, or about a level 3 to 5 on this perceived exertion scale. This level of intensity is no doubt one of the more comfortable areas of exercise, keeping you at a pace that isn't too taxing and doesn't pose much of a challenge. This, along with the idea that it burns more fat, makes this a popular place to stay. But, as we've learned, you can burn more calories if you work harder, and that's what you want for weight loss.
That doesn't mean that low intensity exercise has no purpose. It involves the kind of long, slow activities you feel like you could do all day and, even better, activities you usually enjoy such as:

• Taking a stroll
• Light gardening
• A long, slow bike ride
• A gentle stretching routine

This doesn't have to be a structured, scheduled workout, but something you do all day long by walking more, taking the stairs, doing more physical chores around the house, etc. For help in setting up a cardio program that includes a variety of different workouts, check out this sample cardio workout schedule http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/l/aa022601b.htm

Go to Fat Burning Tip #2 

By Paige Waehner, About.com Guide
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board