Hi,
Effective fat loss is not through a dvd, for effective fat loss one needs to workout within the fatloss zone. However, energy expenditure is still energy expenditure.
What you should be asking yourself is whether or not you are working within your target heart rate zone. There is a pleathora of information on the web about target heart rates and zones. There are several zones and target heart rates. You can find charts that will show you what your target heart rate is, but you also need to know what the zones are for too. The zones are for fat loss, aerobic conditioning and so forth. To ensure you are looking at the correct website, check out several websites AND COMPARE. Your best bet is a medical, health, or fitness website.
In short, effective fat loss is supposed to be induced through a 50-60 percent target heart rate. If your cardio needs to be improved, then you need to work at a higher rate until your body becomes fit to that level of work. Fat loss does not require high intensity, it requires a light to moderately increased heart rate over time. I believe the current dogma says minumum twenty minutes, with a target of 30-50 minutes. so yes, cathe beginner videos are perfect for pure weight loss and cardio improvement. However, for those who are in better physical fitness, intesity or interval training is a better deal. I like drill max and cardio fusion myself for intensity and basic step/low impact dvds for low intensity, days. I find I sometimes work harder on the beginner dvd's because I am working at a lower heart rate. I seem to have more fun, so I push more too.
the deal is increased heart rate over time!!!
If you want to keep muscle, you need to workout 2 to 3 times a week. Be sure to do this after your cardio. This info keeps changing, it is good to read recent Journals of Physiology and alike to keep abreast of this emerging information. I would just caution most of the time the studies reported on are younger adult males which in my opinion don't mean too much for women, especially the older we get. Make sure you always read who the participants were in the test group, ie gender, age range, test group, control group, other conditions affecting the test. ya ya ya
I hope this helps.
GOOD LUCK
Maggie
:+
