Gym goers and exercise enthusiasts, in general, always wonder what the best heart rate for weight loss is. Exercise intensity can be a confusing and misleading concept to master. First of all, there are no hard and fast rules about how long you need to stay in that “fat burning zone” to maximize your workout efforts. My personal recommendation is to focus more on your perceived exertion or effort and less on heart rate training or target heart rate zones.
Best heart rate zone for weight loss
The best heart rate for weight loss is the one that’s right for you.
While it’s true that a higher heart rate will burn more calories, that doesn’t mean you should go out there and try to hit a 200-beats-per-minute mark every time you exercise. It’s not just about the number of calories burned; it’s also about how healthy your heart is, and how well you’re responding to the exercise.
If you have any health concerns—especially if you’ve had a heart attack or other serious condition—it’s important to check with your doctor before increasing your exercise intensity. For most people, though, starting at 60% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) is a good place to begin. Your MHR is calculated by subtracting your age from 220 (so if you’re 40 years old, your MHR would be 190).
After warming up for five minutes, start exercising at 60% of your MHR until you reach 80% of your MHR—then continue exercising at 80% until exhaustion occurs. If you feel like you could go further after this point, increase the difficulty level next time so that exhaustion occurs sooner in the workout session and therefore burns more calories overall!
If you’re trying to lose weight, your heart rate can be a helpful tool.
The best heart rate for weight loss will help you burn fat and calories more efficiently. It’ll also help you avoid over-exerting yourself, which could lead to injury or health problems.
To calculate your ideal heart rate, simply subtract your age from 220. For example, if you’re 40 years old, the best heart rate for weight loss would be 180 beats per minute.
If you want to ensure that you’re exercising within this range of your target heart rate, there are many ways that you can measure it. You can use a stopwatch with a built-in timer or take note of how many times your chest rises in one minute while exercising at rest.
When working out at this level, it’s important not to go beyond 85 percent of your maximum heart rate—doing so could put too much stress on your body and cause injury or other issues.
The best heart rate for weight loss is a range of 50-85 percent of your maximum heart rate.
You can calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220, then multiplying that number by 0.6 (for women) or 0.7 (for men). So if you’re 30 years old, your maximum heart rate is 190 beats per minute.
To find out what percentage of that is, multiply your age by 0.5 (if you’re female) or 0.6 (if you’re male). For example, if you’re 30 years old and female, then your target zone would be 127 to 162 beats per minute.
For most people, this will correspond pretty closely with their aerobic zone—the range where they’ll see the most benefit from their workouts and see the biggest drop in body fat when they start dieting down.
You might have heard that the best heart rate for weight loss is around 120 beats per minute.
That’s not entirely true.
The body needs a certain amount of oxygen to burn calories, and it needs different amounts of oxygen depending on the activity you are doing. The more oxygen you can provide your muscles with, the better they will perform and the more calories they’ll burn—which means more weight loss.
That’s why it’s important to raise your heart rate when burning fat: You need more oxygen to power your muscles, which helps them do their job (burning fat).
One of the most important factors in weight loss is exercising at a high intensity. This means you should be working hard enough that you can only talk in short sentences, not full sentences.
To achieve this level of intensity, you’ll want to shoot for a heart rate of around 140 beats per minute (bpm) during your workout.