Cardio exercise is for you if you want to have a flat tummy. When you practice cardio exercising, your heart rate rises and your metabolism gets a boost, for as long as 24 hours after having a full workout.

During cardio exercises, your body goes through some heave duty calorie burning all over, and that’s exactly what’s needed to trim down your belly fat covering your stomach.

Melting away that unwanted fat with cardio exercises, having a healthy diet and committing yourself to some abdominal exercises to tone down your stomach muscles is a really effective way to a flat tummy.

There isn’t a “top” cardio exercise as such; you can go with anything that raises your heart rate. If you enjoy the outdoors, try out running, fast-paced walks, cycling etc. For people who are more comfortable working out in the gym, treadmills and stationary bikes could be the thing for them. If you would rather prefer being home, jumping rope, dancing or kick boxing should do.

Make sure you do something you enjoy, something that you’d love to do at least a few times a week. Above all, choose an activity that goes hand in hand with your fitness level. For example, even though running burns a lot of calories but if it’s making you uncomfortable in any way, its better you stick to walking.

To keep yourself from getting bored and your body adapting to a single activity, switch between different exercises of your choice.

Your cardio exercise sessions should be at least 30 minutes to an hour, 3 to 4 times a week. If you are at beginning stage, start off slowly, gradually increasing your workout time.

There are a number of benefits for cardio exercises:

* You shed weight and burn calories.

* Cardio exercises strengthen your heart allowing it to pump blood easily and increases the lung capacity.

* Doing cardio leads to better sleep.

* It helps you reduce stress and in turn makes you feel good.

This is what’s called an interval workout and it is designed to burn more calories then the regular workout and it is a great way to mix things up. The basic principle is to do a high intensity exercise for a set period of time to really work your body and then doing a lower intensity exercise to let your body recover.

Simple cardio exercise for you to try:

Doing this exercise should really raise your heart rate.

1. Begin it with 5 minutes of jogging to warm up.
2. Follow it with 2 minutes of sprinting
3. Slow down your jogging pace for the next 5 minutes
4. Sprint again for 2 minutes
5. Return to jogging for 5 minutes

Repeat this exercise as much as you can, if there’s no discomfort. You can end it up by cooling down, which is essential.

This is known as the interval workout which is specifically designed to burn a lot more calories than your regular workout and it forms a great way to try out different activities at once. The basic purpose here is to go through an intensive exercise regime for a set time to really workout your body and following up with the less intensive exercises to help the body recover.