Heart Rate

What heart rate should I maintain while walking?

I'm trying to lose 4 pounds in two weeks. I already workout 3 days a week to build muscle but I'm thinking of walking for an hour a day to lose weight. I was wondering, what heart rate should I maintain, while walking, to avoid using carbs instead of fat.

How fast your heart beat does not exactly determine what your body burns, but can influence how much it burns. And the fat burning takes place over the course of the whole day, not just while you are walking. A good average figure is that you will burn 100 calories per mile walked. During the average 1 hour walk, a person will cover 2 1/2 to 3 miles, so about 250-300 calories - which is excellent. To lose 4 lbs, you need to burn about 14,000 more calories than you take in through eating. Calculate your basal metabolic rate (this is the number of calories your body uses just keeping you alive and breathing). Subtract 100-200 calories from this figure and you have the number of calories you can consume in a day and lose weight at a rate of 1/2 pounds per week. Eat healthy of course, with a diet heavy on the fruits and veggies. Avoid refined sugars and grains and avoid food heavy on the fat (with perhaps the exception of a few peanuts for a great source of easily digestible protiens).

Eating healthy and staying active and 4 pounds in 2 weeks is a very doable goal. You just don't want to lose much more than that as it is generally unhealthy to do so.

Good luck.

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