Cardiovascular exercise is a key element to losing weight, but it's not as simple as just going for a run everyday.
There are some complex body processes that affect how quickly you burn calories during an aerobic workout.
Learning how your body works will help you figure out the right exercises to lose weight quickly.
Most people who have started an exercise plan have at least heard the term "target heart rate.
" This is expressed a number of heart beats per minute.
Essentially, your body is able to burn fat most effectively if you stay within your target heart rate.
If your workout is too intense, or not intense enough, then you won't get a great benefit from the exercise.
However, this is more a measure of efficiency than of raw calories burnt.
Doing a significantly higher intensity exercise will burn more calories than a moderate intensity workout over the same time.
The tradeoff, of course, is that you tire quicker.
For example, you may be able to burn 10 calories per minute doing a moderate intensity workout, but 20 calories per minute doing a high intensity workout.
If you can only sustain the high intensity for 10 minutes, but you can sustain the moderate pace for 30, then you'll ultimately burn more calories doing the lighter workout.
Interval training combines both methods to create effective exercises to lose weight quickly.
When doing an interval work out, you do a normal intensity workout but then occasionally throw in high intensity bursts before going back to normal.
For instance, you could sprint for a minute, then go back to a jog for two minutes, and repeat that pattern.
Interval workouts produce better results than those that stay at the same intensity the whole time.