Know Your Heart Rate Zones

Too many gym goers  just aren’t seeing the results they want to see. They don’t know what they are doing wrong, and most of them just stop going to the gym altogether. Problem is, just going to them gym and exercising your hardest just isn’t always the best way to see the results you are after. If you want to maximize your exercise results, the key to your problems is knowing your heart rate zones.

Calculating Heart Rate Zones

If you want to reach your goals in the gym, you first need to know what your maximum heart rate is.

Maximum Heart Rate

220 – age = Maximum Heart Rate

For example, if you are 30 years old:

220 – 30 = 190

Now that you know what your maximum heart rate is, you can determine what your heart rate zones are.

Heart Rate Zones

Zone One: 65% – 75% of Maximum Heart Rate

Zone Two: 80% – 85% of Maximum Heart Rate

Zone Three: 86% – 90% of Maximum Heart Rate

For example, if you are 30 years old:

Zone One: Heart Rate of 123.5 – 142.5

Zone Two: Heart Rate of 152 – 161.5

Zone Three: Heart Rate of 163.4 – 171

Advantages Of Each Heart Rate Zone

Zone One

• This is a great zone for your warm up and cool down during the exercise.

• If you are new to working out, this is a great zone to stay in during your entire cardio workout.

• This zone will help improve the blood’s ability to deliver oxygen throughout the body and remove waste which increases blood volume and allows the heart to become stronger.

• This is an Aerobic workout, which uses your muscle glycogen and fatty acids as an energy source.

• An example workout would be walking or even jogging.

Zone Two

• This zone is near the anaerobic threshold, which is when the body is at a point where it can no longer produce enough energy for the muscles with normal oxygen intake. As a result, higher levels of lactic acid is produced. Increase your anaerobic threshold should be one of your cardio goals.

• Exercising at an aerobic level, such as being in Zone Two, will result in more calories being burned with a higher percentage of those calories coming from fat. This is an effective zone for those who want to decrease body fat.

• This is the Aerobic/Anaerobic workout, which uses your muscle glycogen and lactic acid as an energy source.

• An example workout would be jogging, group (cardio) exercise classes.

Zone Three

• This is a high intensity workout that can’t be kept up for a long period of time. You should only stay in this intense zone for 60 seconds or less.

• Once you have worked your way up to this zone, you should only go into this zone about once a week – that’s it! If you go into this zone too much, you will overwork your heart and have less efficient workouts.

• Zone Three should only be used in conjunction with Zones One and Two.

• The benefit of Zone Three is to prevent  plateaus and to continue improving your overall fitness level and boost your metabolism.

• Increases the amount of oxygen burned after the workout, also increasing the number of calories burned after the workout.

• This is an Anaerobic workout, which uses ATP/CP and muscle glycogen as an energy source.

• An example workout would be a fast run or sprinting.

Interval Training

Knowing how to use your heart rate zones to your advantage will help increase the effectiveness of your workouts.

Before you start any exercise program – especially Interval Training – I suggest that you get the approval from your Doctor to make sure your heart can handle the intensity involved in this kind of workout.

Beginners

Zone One: 20-40 minutes (entire workout)

• If you haven’t been exercising consistently, it’s important that you start here. You will still get a good workout in, without causing more harm than good. You need to develop a strong cardio base before you move on to other heart rate zones.

Intermediate

Zone One: 5 minutes (warm up)

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 5 minutes (cool down)

• You may only end up being in Zone Two for about 15 or 30 seconds, rather than the entire minute. That’s OK and is expected. Once the minute is up, it’s time to go back into Zone One for 5 minutes. If you never reached Zone Two during that minute, your heart may not be ready for Zone Two.

Advanced

Zone One: 10 minutes

Zone Two: 2  minutes

Zone Three: 1 minute

Zone Two: 1 minute

Zone One: 10 minutes

• This Zone should not be used by beginning or intermediate clients, otherwise it could result in a critical health-related injury.

I suggest buying a Heart Rate Monitor that can easily provide you with your heart rate throughout your workout so you can adjust your pace accordingly. You can manage your heart rate while walking, jogging, running, biking, or even on an elliptical machine or group exercise class. Just monitor your heart rate regularly and know which zone you should stay in.

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Tags: exercise, Fitness, Heart Rate Zone, Weight Loss

How Jennifer Hudson Lost 80 Pounds

Do you want to know how your favorite Diva lost 80 pounds? Jennifer Hudson was able to lose the extra weight when she focused on her diet, through Weight Watchers, and hired a Personal Trainer to help her get started with an exercise routine. Bottom Line: Diet and Exercise.

“It’s all about self-motivation because at the end of the day, you can have all the trainers and all the money in the world, but if you don’t have that mindset, it’s not possible.” – Jennifer Hudson on Oprah

Jennifer Hudson’s Diet

For Jennifer Hudson, it all started with Weight Watchers, which is basically a support group for those who want to calorie count their way into their skinny jeans.

The great thing about Weight Watchers is that you don’t have to buy a specific brand of food to participate in their program (such as the Special K diet or Slim•Fast), though, they do sell their own Weight Watchers products in the grocery stores. Another positive thing about Weight Watchers is that the program doesn’t completely eliminate an entire food group, such as all carbohydrates or all fruit. Other diets are just not as practical.

A couple of concerns about the Weight Watchers program is that dieters are allowed to eat as much fruit as they want. This may sounds like a wonderful thing, but all foods, including fruit, have their limitations. For those who truly want to lose weight, and unlimited amount of sugar is not ideal, even if the sugar is coming from a healthy source such as a piece of fruit.

Weight Watchers is a glorified calorie counting program that costs you money every month. You don’t need to pay a company to find out how many calories you should be eating. It’s common enough that it’s found free throughout the internet. For a free support group, let your family and friends know about your healthy weight loss goals and have them help support you with your efforts. Again, I just don’t think you need to pay for that.

If Jennifer Hudson found success with Weight Watchers, why not you? Something to consider. She was approached by this company and was offered millions of dollars to endorse their product. Trust me, I am sure that would motivate anyone to lose the extra pounds that they wanted to lose anyways.

Jennifer Hudson’s Exercise Routine

In addition to Weight Watchers diet plan, Jennifer Hudson hired a Celebrity Personal Trainer, Harley Pasternak, to help her start an exercise program that would work for her.

Harley started Jennifer with a 25 minute circuit training routine that included cardio, shoulder presses, lunges, sit ups, and ab exercises for five days a week. As Jennifer progressed, she worked her way up to a 50 minute routine. In addition to a traditional style workout with her trainer, Jennifer also gets in at least 25 minutes of cardio every day.

Jennifer tries to keep her cardio workouts fun, so she will enjoy playing some basketball or even jump roping. You don’t have to be in a gym on an exercise machine to burn calories and lose weight!

I am proud of Jennifer Hudson for learning how to eat well and starting an exercise program to help her become healthy. Yeah, she lost weight – but even if you aren’t trying to lose weight, it’s important for your health to eat right and exercise on a regular basis.

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Image Credits: jenniferhudsonweightlossx.com

Tags: Celebrity, Harley Pasternak, Health, Jennifer Hudson, personal trainer, Weight Loss, Weight Watchers

Mariah Carey Reveals Her 70 Pound Weight Loss

The talented Mariah Carey recently revealed to the world how she lost 70 pounds after having her twins just six months ago. See the picture below? That’s a picture of her after she had twins! Continue reading to find out how Mariah Carey was able to lose 70 pounds!

Losing 70 Pounds 

Mariah Carey had a very difficult pregnancy caring twins and gained excess weight from having edema. The first week after Mariah Carey had her twins, she lost 40 pounds in just water weight. After that, she lost 30 pounds of “baby weight” in three months.

How Mariah Carey Lost 70 Pounds

Mariah stuck to 1,500 calories a day (which is very reasonable) and once she was able, she started to workout three times a week.

Mariah didn’t lose her weight completely by herself. Jenny, formerly known as Jenny Craig, approached Mariah Carey to help her lose weight. Mariah Carey ended up as the new Brand Ambassador of the Jenny diet plan.

After three months of sticking to this regime, Mariah Carey was able to lose “at least 30 pounds”. Mariah doesn’t know how much she weighs exactly, since she is focused more on being more healthy. Now, Mariah boasts a flat stomach, toned legs, and easily fits into her size 6 clothes. Not bad for a 42 year old mother of 6 month old twins!

 ”I’m proud of how hard I worked to get my body back…I had to do this for me.” – Mariah Carey

I am not going to specifically endorse the Jenny diet plan, I’ll leave that to Mariah Carey. The reason I wanted to write about Mariah Carey’s weight loss is because (1) I wanted to give everyone an example that age doesn’t matter (as much as people think it does) when it comes to weight loss. Mariah Carey is in her 40′s, and she was able to lose 30 pounds in 3 months. (2) I also wanted to point out that Mariah was able to lose weight, get back into shape, after having twins! A women’s body gains weight and gets stretched out enough with one baby, but can you imagine trying to get back into shape after having twins?

“The whole point of this is not just like, ‘Oh, hey, look at me and my weight loss, I’m fantastic.’ It’s really health, I learned it when I became helpless and felt so vulnerable like never before in my life.” – Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey was able to lose weight without starving herself or living at the gym.  Mariah focused on creating a healthy lifestyle that would work for her.

Do you need to go on the new Jenny diet plan? Not necessarily. If you are able to, I suggest hiring a Certified Personal Trainer and/or a Licensed Nutritionist to help you reach your goals. Otherwise, you can still figure out how many calories you need to eat each day to lose weight, and start an exercise regime. I suggest looking at our archived articles to find out what to eat and how to start an exercise program.

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Image Credit: PRNewsFoto/Jenny Craig

Tags: Celebrity, Mariah Carey, Weight Loss

Mind Your Portion Sizes

Portion Control. Do you know why it’s important? Here’s a hint: If you want to lose weight or maintain your goal weight, you need to keep healthy portion sizes in mind when you are eating.

Here’s a quick little visual aide to help you understand the power of dish size, and how it will effect the amount you will eat.

Do you see these two bowls? The have the exact same amount of cereal in them.

It’s easy to see how you can add multiple serving sizes of cereal (or whatever else you are eating) in the larger bowl, compared to the smaller bowl, which ultimately leads to eating more than you should.

If you are trying to lose or maintain a healthy goal weight, try to eat using a smaller bowl (or plate!), and the less you are going to eat.

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Tags: portion control, Weight Loss

How Kirstie Alley Lost 100 Pounds!

Lately, Kirstie Alley has been more famous for her fluctuating weight than her success as a two-time Emmy award winning Actress! A lot of people can easily relate to Kirstie with her battle of the bulge, but we all have something to celebrate and be proud of: Kirstie Alley has lost 100 pounds and is determined to keep it off for good!

Battle of the Bulge 

Kirstie Alley has been known for the last couple of years for her constant battle with her weight. As Kirstie gained weight, she landed her own reality show called Fat Actress and later became a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

Kirstie didn’t find the success that she wanted to with Jenny Craig, and rumors flew around saying that Kirstie left Jenny Craig because she gained her weight back, and other rumors said that she left due to creating a competing weight loss program. Fast forward a couple of years, Kirstie finally loses 100 pounds, reaches her goal weight and surprises all of us with a new weight loss product. Who knew weight gain and weight loss could be so profitable?

How Kirstie Alley Lost 100 Pounds

Kirstie Alley lost 60 pounds before her stint on Dancing With The Stars,  and during the show she lost a another 30 pounds! So how did she do it?

“I worked with scientists and different experts in the world of organic. I wanted something…there’s actually science behind chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, fungicides; all of the “-icides”, causing you to gain weight. So, I worked with these scientists and I said ‘this is what’s wrong with me. This is what keeps happening to me, and let’s solve it’ and we did solve it.” -Kirstie Alley on The View talking about her new company called Organic Liason.

Kirstie started a new company called Organic Liason, which she credits to giving her the energy she needed to participate on Dancing With The Stars and helped her with her weight loss. Kirstie’s new company promotes an Organic and healthy lifestyle – no fad diet!

One of the products that Organic Liason created is called “Rescue Me Weight Loss Elixer”, which is a product to help Kirstie rescue herself from temporary diets that didn’t last.

I am not one for weight loss supplements, but I have to admit…an organic, natural, safe, and healthy weight loss product? Hmm… tempting. Yet, not sure you *have* to have her product to lose weight. Yes, it worked for Kirstie, but she had a lot of money on the line, which would motivate just about anybody to lose weight and keep it off (Biggest Loser, anyone?). Either way, I think it’s great that Kirstie has lost 100 pounds and is determined to live a much healthier life and keep the weight off!

Was plastic surgery ever an option for Kirstie? Not even close!

“I haven’t had plastic surgery, but here’s the reason: People do plastic surgery to make you look younger, I don’t think it makes you look younger … it can make you look weird.” – Kirstie Alley talking to E.T. 

I think we would all agree that Kirstie – even at 60 years old – looks fabulous, and she doesn’t need surgery. I personally don’t believe people should feel like it’s necessary, because it is not!

How to Keep the Weight Off

Something to keep in mind to help motivate you: Maintaining weight is a lot easier than losing the weight. Create a healthy lifestyle, make exercise a habit, and eat withing your calorie budget. Once you reach your goal weight, you can eat some additional calories, but don’t go all out – that’s what caused the weight gain in the first place, right? Still…it’s a lot easier to maintain your weight. Weigh yourself regularly and stay on track! Yes, you can do it!

Good luck with your health goals everyone!

Feel free to follow us, however you like: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Image Credit: Kristie Alley Before and After 

Tags: Celebrity, Fitness, Health, healthy lifestyle, Kirstie Alley, Nutrition, Weight Loss