Secret weapon for fat loss: the heart rate monitor

DietPixie’s brilliant new fitness expert, Myke Gray, will be giving you weekly advice on getting the body you want. In his first article, Myke lets you in on a cast iron weight loss weapon.

If weight loss is your primary goal, one of the most important things that you need to do is to find out your metabolic rate.

I have found that using a heart rate monitor is the best way of doing this. Until you know this vital key factor you will be guessing in the dark about when, and how much you should be eating. The recommended daily intake of calories for a male is 2,500 and for a women, 1,900.

I get my clients to wear a heart rate monitor, with a calorie counter, I recommend the Polar F11, for 24 hrs to find out exactly how many calories a day they burn with their current lifestyle. We then design a nutritional plan around that information.

As a forty-year-old healthy male, I will burn approximately one calorie a minute if I am in front of the computer, television or sleeping, I will burn approximately 100 calories an hour if I am moving about, such as walking to work or shopping, and I will burn between 500 and 1,000 calories an hour if I am working out.

On these figures something like a cheese sandwich which has approximately 500 calories will take about eight hours to burn off if eaten before going to bed, so imagine how long it would take to burn off a full dinner, dessert and two glasses of wine, which is what most of my clients were doing before they started training under my supervision.

But I must emphasise that everyone is different, and that you need to find out how your body works.

Five things to take into consideration:

1. Your metabolism slows down at night, so everything you eat before you go to bed is likely to turn to fat overnight if it is more than your body needs to get you through your sleep cycle.

2. You lose weight through the night, but that weight loss is generally muscle and water. Most people get fatter through the night because it is your muscle to fat ratio that is changing.

3. Exercise increases your metabolism and one hour of exercise can burn more calories than eight hours of sitting in front of a computer or TV.

4. Eating protein raises your metabolism as it takes approximately seven calories for your body to digest one gram of protein. One gram of protein has approximately four calories.

5. Eat small amounts and often as this regulates blood sugar and keeps your metabolism up. When you skip meals this slows down your metabolism.

Try to make your last meal of the day your smallest. The last thing you eat before you go to bed is likely to be the stuff that will turn to fat overnight.

Find out more about Myke by visiting his website or MySpace page.