How cardio can help you melt fat faster

Losing that stubborn body fat and getting in to your best shape may require that you at least engage in some form of Cardio or aerobic activity.

The question is, is there a perfect cardio exercise that will  to lose fat through cardio exercise? Any cardio exercise by its very true nature requires fat to be used as the main fuel source while other nutrients are only used to a smaller extent. So in order to lose fat, you will very much need to include cardio exercises to trigger the fat burning process.

Great cardio activity for fat loss constitutes any form of exercise that is repetitive, long and hard enough to challenge the heart and lungs to use oxygen as a fuel to sustain the body over a longer period let us say 20 minutes or longer. Typically such exercises - done at either moderate to high intensity - have been shown to burn more calories over time.

Zumba, tae-bo, rhumba, insanity class, boxercise, cycling, rowing, running, brisk walking, carrying light weights, hill walks, swimming and dance aerobics are some of these exercise. The thing about the above exercises is that they are all intense and utilize the most muscles groups which is a great as far as fat loss is concerned.

So any of the above cardio exercises done at a moderate intensity that is 50 –75 per cent of Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) or within the desired fat burning zone appear to burn more actual residual fat. To measure your Maximum Heart Rate, subtract your age from 220.

As long as you keep your exercise within the aerobic zone (exercising using oxygen) and does not go beyond anaerobic in nature (a point where you are gasping for air and carbohydrate is now needed to fuel you up) taking your exercise up a notch is advised. The higher the intensity, the better.

With higher intensity cardio exercise, your body ultimately burns a smaller percentage of fat calories from a much larger number of total calories that you burn. In the end, the more you increase your intensity, more fat calories will be used and the melting process pushed up.

This is not to say that low intensity cardio exercises are worthless, they do have their place. However, if you want to burn the largest degree of body fat in the shortest time possible, higher intensity cardio exercises is the most ideal way to go. Higher intensity aerobics seem to be the superior method.