The Best Cardio Exercises for Burning Fat

When looking to shed a few pounds with exercise, efficiency is king--no one has the desire to waste time or energy performing exercises that will provide a less-than-stellar return on investment. Thus, if your primary goal is shedding fat, there are certain types of cardio that can provide more bang for your proverbial buck. These are the exercises which will enable you to lose the most amount of fat with the least amount of effort, making them the cornerstone of any weight loss program.

  1. Fasted Morning Cardio

    • Perform fasted morning cardio at least four or five days per week to burn a maximal amount of fat with minimal effort. Fasted cardio is simply low-intensity cardio (such as walking) performed in the morning before breakfast. According to the weightlifting and exercise Web site BuildingBodies.ca, this works to burn more fat than traditional cardio due to the fact that your body is physiologically primed to use fat as fuel in the morning thanks to your low blood sugar levels at that time (due to the overnight fast).

      To make fasted morning cardio work for you, simply hop out of bed, have a half-cup of green tea or water to get yourself moving, and get in a brisk walk before eating anything solid (or drinking anything that contains calories).

      Although you will be burning a relatively low number of calories, most of those calories will be directly from fat--over time, this will add up to make a substantial impact on your physique, providing you with the easy and simple fat loss results that everyone craves, but few people accomplish.

    Interval Training

    • Perform interval training in the evenings (or during your regularly scheduled workouts) to burn additional fat with a higher-intensity workout that will increase your metabolism significantly. Interval training can be performed on the track, on a treadmill, or on any piece of cardio exercise equipment. Simply choose your favorite.

      Alternate between 45 seconds of pedaling (or jogging) at a steady pace, followed by a full 15 seconds of flat-out sprinting effort. Interval training works to burn fat by keeping the body guessing, burning more calories than merely performing steady-state cardio alone. Continue alternating back and forth for a total of 10 to 15 sets, for an easy 10 to 15 minute workout to accelerate your fat loss beyond what you could accomplish with other forms of cardio training.