The Vlog

One of the most powerful methods I’ve found for burning fat is using a heart rate monitor. If you already have a monitor, or are looking to purchase one, one important feature is “calories burned.” Since, it takes approximately 3,500 calories to burn a pound of fat, you can determine how much fat you will need to burn each session to hopefully burn at least one pound of fat per week.

Let’s go through a couple of scenarios on how to properly use a heart rate monitor for losing weight. Again, if you desire to lose one pound of fat through exercise alone, this means burning 3,500 calories per week. If you workout 5 days a week, this means you will have to burn 700 calories each day (700 x 5 = 3,500). If you workout 6 days a week, you will still have to burn 3,500 calories, but when divided by 6, you only have to burn 583.3 calories per session.

If you really want to burn at one full pound of fat per week with exercise alone, I do not recommend working out less than 5 days a week — unless you are already at a high starting weight. The more you weigh, the more calories you will burn. Let me give you an example. A man who weighs 220 pounds running at 5 mph for 60 minutes will burn approximately 844 calories. A woman who weighs 145 pounds running at 5 mph for 60 minutes will only burn approximately 556 calories. This is a whopping 300 calorie difference and it is precisely the reason why weight loss can slow down the more weight a person loses. To compensate for this, I have my clients slightly increase the intensity and the time that they exercise, which can definitely help keep exercise time in check. To get a general idea of how much calories you burn based on activity, check out:

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

I personally use a heart rate monitor daily. It helped me learn that my exercise intensity was a lot less than I had thought it was. I am a professional trainer, but like anyone else I had fooled myself into thinking that my training was intense because I was in such great shape. However, even during strength training I was only burning 300-400 calories a session. As I began to include more cardio sessions to bring myself up to burning 700 calories per session, I first noticed my abs got more defined. After a week, I realized the heart rate monitor gave me more motivation because I had a specific goal for each workout and I felt better both mentally and physically from getting in more exercise. If you want to get your fat burning down to a science, try out a heart rate monitor for yourself.