How to Burn Excess Fat

Excess body fat is unhealthy and can be embarrassing. If you are carrying excess body fat, the only way to lose it is to perform fat burning activities. According to The American Council on Exercise, certain types of exercises, such as cardiovascular exercise, paired with a healthy diet will trigger overall fat loss easier than others. Performing these exercises while maintaining a proper diet will help you burn away excess fat and achieve a lean and healthy figure.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator
• Running shoes
• Jump rope
• Exercise mat

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Instructions

• 1

  Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR. The resulting number is how many calories your body needs to consume daily to maintain proper function at a state of rest. You must determine that number and eat within your daily caloric requirements to successfully burn fat, according to The American Council on Exercise. Exercising while providing your body with its essential daily requirements will cause you to burn more calories than you consume daily. So long as you are not exercising too vigorously, this amount of calories will keep your body healthy and encourage fat loss. Use the following equation to determine your BMR:

  Women: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) = BMR

  Men: 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in year) = BMR

• 2

  Base a healthy diet off your BMR to supplement your exercise program. Count the calories of everything you consume daily to ensure that you do not exceed your caloric requirements. Look for this information on the nutritional labels on food packaging. Fruits and vegetables are healthy choices as they contain low calories while their natural sugars and carbohydrates energize your body for longer.

• 3

  Perform cardiovascular activities. Exercising for 30 to 60 minutes daily, three to five days a week, will help your body burn excess fat, The American Council on Exercise states. Consider jogging, swimming, cycling, jumping rope, rollerblading and playing tennis. Performing any one of these regularly will burn fat and raise your metabolism for as many as 12 hours following the workout. This, in turn, increases the rate at which your body burns calories while resting and aids overall fat loss.

• 4

  Incorporate bodyweight exercise. A bodyweight exercise uses your own weight as resistance to strengthen and tone your muscles. According to Brad Johnson, author of "Bodyweight Exercises for Extraordinary Strength," performing bodyweight exercises three to five days a week will help you burn body fat. Examples of bodyweight exercises to introduce into your routine include push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, crunches, tricep dips, squats and calf raises. Performing bodyweight exercises will help burn fat during the workout and boost your metabolism for as many as eight hours following the workout. Doing so increases the rate that your body will burn calories at rest, increasing the amount of fat that burns daily.