Reaching a target heart rate is extremely important for fat burn. Boosting your heart rate means you’re pushing your body to its limit, which helps increase your metabolism. Read on to find out more about how your heart rate can affect fat loss.
What is Heart Rate?
Heart rate is an important factor to keep in mind while trying to burn fat. Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in a minute. It is a very helpful number to monitor while exercising because it can help tell if you are exerting enough energy in order to burn fat.
How to Find Your Ideal Fat Burning Heart Rate
To find your ideal heart rate, start with your maximum heart rate. For men, this number would be your age subtracted from 220. So if you are 35 years old, your maximum heart rate is 185. Your ideal heart rate during exercise would be 50 percent to 80 percent of the maximum heart rate. If you intend to burn fat and lose weight while working out, then your ideal intensity level would be 60 percent to 70 percent. This level of intensity will burn more fat per every calorie that is burned. For help calculating your heart rate, use the MenScience Heart Rate Calculator.
What Intensity Should I be Exercising At?
Keeping track of your heart rate is also helpful, because it can be used to pace yourself. You do not want to start working out at an 85 percent heart rate if you are going to be working out for a long period of time. It is very important not to get carried away get ahead of yourself.
If you are a beginner, it would be best to start out with low intensity workouts and slowly work your way up to higher intensities. Starting at high intensity and exercising at that level all the time isn’t a good idea. It can lead to injury and breakdown.
While it is a fact that more fat is burned per calorie during a low intensity exercise, not as many calories are burned overall as they would be in a high intensity exercise. Consider that although these high intensity workouts may burn more calories and fat overall, it is not smart to do these all the time. It is important to engage in more of a moderate exercise routine in order to burn fat consistently without burning yourself out.
