FAT BURNING

FAT BURNING TIPS FOR MEN

Although fat is an essential part of the body because it provides an energy reserve and protects the organs, too much fat can be detrimental to your health. If overweight or obese, your are at risk for such conditions as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure, and stroke is heightened. If this is the case, try to lose weight by burning fat. Follow specific recommendations to burn fat effectively.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY

To lose weight, you need to increase your physical activity, but you may not realize you can start moving more right away---without starting a formal exercise program. Make small changes to your current daily activities to increase physical activity. For example, when visiting a store, park far away from the entrance in order to walk a long distance to and from the door. You can also walk up stairs instead of riding an elevator or escalator. You can start push-mowing part of your lawn if you typically use a riding lawn mower. Whereas these are not big changes, they can make a big difference over time.

RESISTANCE EXERCISE

Resistance exercise involves intense muscle contractions, usually to move a weighted barbell, dumbbells or your body weight. Although your body uses carbohydrates as its primary fuel for resistance exercise, it increases your muscle mass which, in turn, may increase your resting metabolic rate---the number of calories you burn while resting---to help burn fat. Additionally, maintaining or increasing muscle mass ensures that any weight loss you achieve is because of fat loss rather than decreased muscle mass and bone density. When designing a resistance exercise program, choose exercises that work all your major muscle groups at least once each week.

NUTRITION

Whereas physical activity and exercise are essential for burning fat, do not overlook your diet. In order to lose fat mass, you must consider your daily energy balance---how many calories burned versus how many consumed. To lose about a pound per week, eat approximately 500 calories less than you burn daily, according to nutritional experts William McArdle, Frank Katch and Victor Katch. Besides watching your calories, eat a well-balanced diet and limit dietary fat intake, especially saturated and trans fats.

Burning fat requires using more calories than you consume during the day, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Many men neglect to include fat-burning exercise in their regular routines and end up with health problems related to obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol. Any physical activity can boost metabolism to burn calories. Concentrated exercises for men to burn fat include high-impact cardiovascular activities that can be performed in the gym, at home or on a playing field. There are 3,500 calories in 1 lb. of fat. To lose fat, you must burn an additional 3,500 calories through exercise or reduce food intake. Eliminating 500 calories per day through exercise or eating results in 1 lb. of fat loss per week.

HOME EXERCISES

The best fat-burning exercises raise the heart rate and transport oxygen-rich blood to the muscles from the lungs, according to the Cleveland Clinic. For those who prefer to work out alone or don't want to invest in a gym membership, some of the best activities include jogging and power walking. Men with back or joint problems can benefit from low-impact aerobics like swimming and cycling, which burn a higher percentage of calories that come from fat when they are performed at a fast pace for an extended period of time. The more muscles that are engaged in an activity, the more fat is burned.

WEIGHT TRAINING

Muscles burn more calories than fat. To decrease body fat, men should include exercise that includes building muscles. Increasing muscle density helps turn the body into a fat-burning machine. Circuit training with weight lifting and resistance machines is the best way to burn fat because you can maintain an elevated heart rate by not taking rest breaks between exercises. In a circuit training routine, men should perform repetitions of the weight-lifting equipment, performing leg lifts, pec flyes, arm extensions and other resistance exercises and then do aerobic activities between sets. After doing three sets of 10 repetitions on a weight-lifting machine, grab a jump rope and jump for 30 or 45 seconds or get on a treadmill or elliptical trainer for one minute and then move to the next set of lifts. A circuit training routine is a full-body workout, which requires a day of rest between exercising to give the muscles time to heal.

SPORTS

Exercise to burn fat doesn't have to be done in the gym or on a lonely road. A pick-up game of basketball, touch football or tennis can burn a significant amount of calories while providing a social outlet for men. A 200-lb. man can burn close to 500 calories in a game of softball or closer to 700 in a casual game of racquetball. Beach volleyball can result in nearly 800 calories burned in an hour for that same man, while a friendly game of tennis can burn about 700 calories. In addition to the social and psychological health benefits of sports, most games provide a full-body workout with cardiovascular and strengthening benefits.