Heart Rate Monitors and Weight Loss

Cardiovascular and aerobic exercise is recommended for people who want to lose weight. This type of exercise, combined with a healthy diet, can help individuals lose and maintain weight over the long-term. In order to obtain the proper exercise results, it’s essential to monitor heart rate. Doctors and exercise physiologists recommend a sustained sixty to seventy-five percent of maximum heart rate to safely burn fat.

Aerobic exercise must be performed at a rate that’s intense enough to burn fat and lose weight but not overtax the individual’s body in the process. A heart rate monitor can help the exerciser know what level he or she is training at and assist in supporting weight loss goals.

Target Heart Rate
Before starting exercise, it’s important to know one’s target heart rate. Calculate this figure by subtracting age from two hundred twenty. This is the “maximum heart rate” and the level at which the body may become exhausted. It’s important to work beneath this level.

Some out of shape individuals may benefit from a doctor-monitored exercise stress test. This will help the doctor to know at what level it’s beneficial for a reconditioned or beginner to exercise. Most people find they can exercise at fifty to sixty percent of target heart rate at the beginning. More athletic individuals can exercise at seventy to eighty percent of target heart rate without a problem.

For instance, a forty year old person with an average level of fitness calculates target heart rate of two hundred twenty minus his or her age of forty, or one hundred eighty. When multiplied by seventy percent, the individual’s safe heart rate for aerobic conditioning exercise is about one hundred twenty-six. Wearing a heart rate monitor, the exercise can maintain the level of exercise required to sustain this level for training purposes.

Conclusion
A good heart rate monitor is important for the individual who’s serious about achieving weight loss goals. A programmable monitor is an investment in health and provides a wealth of information to fine-tune each exercise session. For example, some heart rate monitors allow the individual to input height, weight, age, gender, or other details, and it’s possible to obtain calories burned during an exercise session along with heart rate measurement at a glance.