Cardio zones mean that your heart is beating faster as a response to its demand. Running up steps, sprinting these activities will increase your heart rate.
What is the difference between fat-burning zones and cardio zones? What do I need to change to lose weight?
If getting to the fat-burning zone is your goal, this requires slow but prolonged activities that raise your heart rate but not as high as those for cardio zones. Each person is different, but slow to medium paced activities usually fall within the fat-burning zone, like a slow to a medium-paced one-hour walk. The Karvonen Formula can help indicate which heart rate is right for you and your goals.
Why is getting my heart rate up with exercise the goal?
“Increasing your heart rate over your resting heart rate improved your cardiovascular performance” states Dr. Allen Conrad, BS, DC, CSCS, a certified strength, and conditioning specialist and the Team Chiropractor for the Blackthorn Rugby Team.
When you increase your heart rate, it improves the rate of that oxygen can be used by your muscles and organs, which is good for your overall health. The more efficient the heart is pumping, the better the workouts you will see. When someone is not in cardiovascular fitness, they will become short of breath when exercising. An easy way to see how you are progressing is to see if you can carry on a conversation while doing aerobic exercise, like jogging. If you are short of breath, it’s because your body is using all of the oxygen it is receiving to help you breathe, and as you become in better aerobic shape, you will be able to exercise with less shortness of breath.
How do I determine what my heart rate should be while exercising?
The answer depends on your goals. Part of this evaluation process included using the Karvonen formula for the target heart rate.
What is the Karvonen Formula?
The Karvonen formula was created by Dr. M. J. Karvonen as a method of determining your target heart range for certain exercise goals. The Karvonen formula is taking 220- your age = “x”, and then applying that number “x” to the target heart range chart to determine which range fits your activity goals. If you are looking to burn more fat, more medium type exertion exercises like jogging may get you in the range you desire. The fat-burning zone target is 60-70% of your maximum target heart rate for fat burning. If cardiovascular benefits are your goal, then 70-80% of your heart rate max is the range you will want to aim to stay in.
Give me an example?
For someone who is 24 has been exercising regularly and wants to burn fat, 220-24= 196. 196 is their recommended maximum heart rate. You can check your heart rate by counting how many times your pulse on your neck beats in a minute’s time.
How else can I lose weight?
1. Vegetables backed by research to boost metabolism
“Capsaicin found in chili peppers has improved your metabolism through increased fat oxidation” states Dr. Allen Conrad, BS, DC, CSCS of Montgomery County Chiropractic Center. This study showed that certain spicy foods like chili’s can show some increased benefits with your metabolic rate.
A good recipe for Spicy bell pepper soup contains Capsaicin and tastes good too.
How else can I boost my metabolism?
“Your metabolism is the process in which your body burns calories or fat,” states Dr. Allen Conrad, BS, DC, CSCS.”
How fast or how slow your body’s metabolism works can be frustrating for people trying to lose weight, especially because some factors are out of your control. A good portion of how your metabolism works is hereditary, so expecting major changes with little effort will result in frustration. Whether you are male or female also plays a role, and some studies confirm that it is easier for a man to increase his metabolism than a woman. In the study, men were able to increase their Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) 9% with resistance strength training, whereas women had no increase in their metabolism.
2. How much control do we have over our metabolism?
Strength training vs. cardio, caffeine,/coffee benefits.
Strength training has shown success in improving your metabolic rate, and some studies demonstrate that cardio may actually slow down your metabolism. Let me explain. When you do cardio, you are more likely to burn calories from fat. A
Harvard study demonstrated that when you burn these fat calories, your resting energy expenditure will lower from this weight loss over time. Thus your metabolism will slow down as you lose weight.
What can you do to speed up your metabolism? Some research supports strength training, which can help increase it between 6-9% depending on the study.
Resistance training, when done in coordination worth cardio studies have also been done.
The data indicate that endurance training will increase aerobic power and decrease body fat; resistance training will increase muscular strength, fat-free mass, and BMR; and a combination of these two training schemes provides positive results.
Can coffee stimulate your metabolism?
Yes, research has shown that caffeine and coffee can increase your metabolic rate in both normal and obese individuals, but that the greater oxidation of fat from the caffeine was only noted in normal adults in the study.
3. Try an anti-inflammatory diet
What is inflammation?
Inflammation is a defense mechanism of the body in response to a stimulus. This stimulus could be a wound, an injury, or a systemic organ process like your diet. Acute inflammation is of recent onset, whereas chronic inflammation is a condition that has been persistent for much longer.
How can the anti-inflammatory diet help?
The anti-inflammatory diet includes foods that do not trigger the inflammatory process in your body. The goal is to reduce the amount of inflammatory foods from your diet, like processed foods and sugars. Many foods such as sugars and high fructose corn syrup have been shown to trigger the inflammatory response and can lead to potential health problems as a result.
Studies have shown that foods high in sugars, including fructose, can cause long-lasting problems, including insulin insufficiency. “These studies demonstrate that inflammatory foods containing fructose can lead to insulin problems including type 2 diabetes, and should be avoided,” stated Dr. Allen Conrad, BS, DC, CSCS of Montgomery County Chiropractic Center in North Wales PA.
Sugars like fructose put extra stress on the pancreas, which produces insulin, and since they have little nutritional value, they should be avoided to help prevent adult-onset type 2 diabetes.
Other benefits of the anti-inflammatory diet:
Improved activities of daily living:
- patients who are already diabetic can take less insulin
- improved pain and spasm
- reduced weight gain and maintaining a healthy body weight
- improved energy
- improved sports specific activity
- reduction of lipid toxicity
- improvement of glucose tolerance
The anti-inflammatory diet incorporates foods that help reduce the inflammatory response, and incorporating these low sugar foods into your regular diet can help prevent other health problems.
