One of the most common beliefs about why people don’t lose fat is that they don’t have the metabolism for it. That is, they think there is something wrong with their metabolism, preventing them from losing fat like other people do. This is a grave mistake.

While you may not have the same genetic and metabolic gifts that the world’s greatest athletes and models have, very few people have metabolic conditions that would prevent them from having a healthy body fat level. Some people can stay lean without any effort, while others have to work at it, but very few of us are doomed to fatness by our metabolisms.

That said, your baseline metabolism does tend to slow as you get older. This results in reduced energy and calorie needs, making it harder to keep active and keep the belly fat off. Our sedentary lifestyles contribute to this mess too.

You were almost surely more active when you were young than you are now. That means you almost surely burned more calories through activity each day when you were young than you do now. Combine a slowing baseline metabolism with less activity and you’ve got a formula for a big gut. To get rid of that gut, you need to rev up your metabolism and give it a reason to burn up some of that fat.

Cardio workouts are the most common way people try to rev up their metabolism. And they work to some extent, burning additional calories and using up fat as long as you stay on that machine or keep pounding the pavement. But step off the machine or stop striding along at speed and your metabolism quickly slows down again. You could try to keep your metabolism high by doing cardio longer, but at some point you either need to get on with the rest of your life, develop a repetitive stress injury, or bore yourself to tears. Fortunately, there’s a better way.

In recent years, many researchers have concluded that cardio workouts are not the best way to rev up your metabolism. Studies show that high-intensity, highly-variable exercise works better and faster for strengthening your body, protecting your heart, and revving up your metabolism. These kinds of exercises more realistically simulate the kind of activities our bodies were designed for.

Our ancestors didn’t jog for hours. No mammals do that. Instead, our ancestors lives were filled with short bursts of strenuous activity (like catching dinner) mixed with periods of rest. Their heart rates went way up then way down. Our bodies are made for that kind of activity and respond well to it.

These kinds of activities have an additional advantage when it comes to boosting your metabolism. When you engage in high-intensity activities like sprinting or lifting heavy weights, your metabolism speeds up. Your muscles also get damaged a bit. This is healthy and normal and not a problem as long as your body gets rest between intense periods.

Because your muscles get damaged by high-intensity workouts, your body needs to do repairs when you are resting. That requires energy, which boosts your metabolism. Studies have shown that your metabolic rate will be higher for as much as a day or two after a hard workout. Doing these kinds of workouts helps you burn the fat right off your belly, even when you aren’t in the gym or at the track.

Many of the newer workout programs include this kind of exercise, usually called high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. If you’re serious about burning fat, I strongly suggest that you look for a program that includes this kind of training in addition to, or in place of, traditional cardio workouts.

Everyone has wondered at some point in time which cardio exercise is better. To put it in simple terms, both low and high intensity exercises will help you to burn off body fat. The question here is which is the most effective to burn off more body fat.

When scientists first discovered that during intensive exercises, your body burns glycogen, which is a form of stored carbohydrates that are stored in your liver and muscles for energy. During low intensity exercises, your body will burn a lot of fat.

If your wondering whether or not it works, the answer is no because there are so many obese people still around. Even though they are working out with low intensity routines, it still makes you wonder how it can be.

The scientists were right when they said the human body burns more body fat during low intensity exercises like walking or swimming. During a high intensity exercise such as running, the body will burn a lot more calories. Even if some of the calories burnt are from glycogen, there are still many fat calories burned as well.

To put the icing on the cake, when your store of glycogen gets low, the carbohydrates from your food you eat will later get converted into glycogen to fill up the store and won’t be converted to body fat when they are left unused for energy.

High intensity cardio exercise will juice up your metabolism even after you have completed your workout. What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat hours after you have left the gym. This effect is nearly non existent in low intensity cardio or aerobic workout.

Accumulatively, your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you have finished a high intensity cardio exercise that it will with low intensity.

You can inject high intensity exercises into your cardio workout by introducing some interval training. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes or so. Then, walk briskly again until you have caught your breath and then sprint for a minute before you walk again. From this point, simply alternate your running and walking for the next 15 minutes until you are finished.

One of the best things about cardio is the more you do it, the more energy you’ll have. Cardio will help you to burn calories, although its more useful for keeping your energy levels high.

If you’ve never tried cardio before, you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you’ll find cardio the best way to boost your energy and keep in top shape. If you are just starting out, you’ll want to go slow and keep your cardio exercise in track – as it is very easy to over exert yourself.

I’ve been doing doing interval runs at least twice a week for the past few weeks, though aiming for 3 a week, so I thought I’d post this here as I found it to be informative.

Losing weight really has one basic premise: burn more calories than you take in. By inducing a calorie deficit, your body turns to your fat stores for energy. Most people often resort to doing traditional cardio workouts to burn calories. These types of exercises usually involve getting on a machine, like a treadmill or an exercise bike, and running or pedaling at a fast, steady pace for 30 minutes or more. However, these exercises use up a lot of time, and they can be quite hard on your joints, plus the tendency to become and repetitive and boring. A more effective type of calorie-burning workout is the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout. It takes up less time, provides variety for workouts, and is a more effective calorie-burners.

Basic Premise of Interval Training

Essentially, HIIT exercises are exercises that vary in pace from a moderately relaxed speed to a very fast pace that requires near-maximal effort. The exercises alternate between 2 to 3 levels of intensity done in short durations. The alternating periods allow your body to perform at higher intensity levels which usually cannot be sustained for prolonged periods of time.

Example of HIIT

An example of an interval training exercise would be to alternate your jogging pace and sprint pace on a treadmill or track. After a 5-minute warm-up period, you will then jog at a moderate pace for 1 minute followed by a sprint run for 20 seconds. This is considered one interval. You will then repeat this alternating jog-sprint interval 6 to 10 times. After 10 intervals, you can then do a cool-down jog for 5 minutes. The total length of this exercise, including warm-up and cool-down, is approximately 16 to 22 minutes.

You can do interval training with any exercise machine, like the exercise bike or the rowing machine.

Feel the Burn

The main advantages of HIIT workouts is that you will burn more calories in less time than you would by exercising at a steady pace for 30 minutes or more. The intervals where you exert near-maximal effort pushes your body’s metabolism to a higher gear, thus burning more fat than if you were moving at a steady pace. The relatively longer slow intervals allow your body to recover and prepare for the next high-interval set.

More Efficient Combined Training

The shorter time it requires to do these exercises also means you can fit in HIIT after your weight-training exercises. This will boost your metabolism quickly, without your body lapsing into the post-weights anabolic phase it would if you do cardio. This means that your body will correctly be repairing muscle after both sets of exercises are done. If your body were to lapse into its anabolic phase while you were doing traditional cardio exercises after your weight training, your muscular growth will be impaired.

High-intensity interval training is a more efficient way to lose more weight through calorie-burning. If you have a personal trainer, ask him/her to help you program HIIT into your training program. Remember, though, that you need to always consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.