One misnomer is that you have to exercise hard in order to lose weight. While cardio is important you may be spending more time burning glucose (sugar) than fat. We strongly recommend purchasing a heart rate monitor and incorporating into your fitness regimen. You will find most books, trainers, etc will tell you that diet changes are 75%-90% of the battle to lose weight. The word “diet” is really the wrong term. What we are talking about is a lifestyle change. While you will change how you eat you will most likely will not make radical shifts in what you eat. Of course if you are a McDonalds junkie you are in for some change.

Polar Links:
Why Heart Rate Monitors
Target Zone Exercise

One of the best charts available for heart rate zone training is at the Lifetime Fitness web site. Get the chart. If you are looking for a great gym we highly recommend Lifetime Fitness.

Heart Rate Zone Training:
Training Zones

Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) — 50 – 60% of maximum heart rate: The easiest zone and probably the best zone for people just starting a fitness program. It can also be used as a warm up for more serious walkers. This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) — 60 – 70% of maximum heart rate: This zone provides the same benefits as the healthy heart zone, but is more intense and burns more total calories. The percent of fat calories is still 85%.

Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) — 70 – 80% of maximum heart rate: The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat.

Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) — 80 – 90% of maximum heart rate: Benefits of this zone include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you’ll be able to fight fatigue better. This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15 % from fat.

Red Line (Maximum Effort) — 90 – 100% of maximum heart rate: Although this zone burns the highest number of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so. ¹ Data provided by Wikipedia

Mens Health Abs Diet Workout:
Based on my experience with trainers they will encourage you to do core exercises. These are easy to do in your hotel room and don’t necessarily require any weights. You will find that if you do the exercise routine as describe your heart will be pumping, you will begin to shed the fat pounds, and build lean muscle. When possible warm up on a treadmill for 5 minutes prior to doing your exercises. If you take the stairs from your hotel room down to the hotel gym and then back up you will be ready to go!

The Abs Diet Recap is a quick way to learn about this program. Best of all it is free and includes some basic exercise routines that you can start today! Also print out the Abs Diet Weekly Workout Schedule. It shows you how to do the exercises properly.

Measuring Your Success:
It is critical that you keep track, from the beginning, your progress. Get a tape measure and measure the size of your gut and around your hips. Every 2 weeks recheck this. Also, be sure to get on an accurate scale to see your actual weight. Try to use the same scale each week. Don’t weigh yourself more than once a week and you should do it on the same day.