Elliptical Advice

I finally got up the nerve today to try the Elliptical. I have been riding the exercise bike for an hour and felt like it was time for a change.

I was able to do the entire weight loss program (35 minutes) without dying. At times my heart rate got up to 170.

What I don't know is what I should set the resistance and incline to. How long should I stay on there.

Today I felt like I could have kept going but once my timer was up it reset and that just made me mad. LOL

Is this going to be enough exercise doing the elliptical 30-45 minutes a few times a week? My calorie counter says I burned 530 calories. Does that sound right?

Thanks for your help!

I am the elliptical queen!  Literally, I have lost hundreds of pounds on this machine.  It is so good for you, low impact and soft on the knees but good with the heart rate.

When you are trying to burn fat to lose weight it is best to keep your heart rate at about 120 to 135 beats per minute, or rather a ratio of your weight and age.  You don't want to work your heart too hard it will take you into cardio, which is good, but will not burn the fat as effectively.

Yes, you will lose tons of weight doing 35 to 40 minutes a few times a week.  More then 40 minutes isn't going to help too much more, so use any extra time you have to do some resistance training to build muscle.

 

This is kind of hard to translate as I copied it from Excel, but this is a cardio workout my trainer gave me for the elliptical.
(the minutes are the actual time you do things.. so from minute 0 - minute 2 you do your warmup, from minute 2 to minute 3 you do the next resistance, etc. My friend thought that was the amount of time to spend in that speed)

ELLIPTICAL INTERVAL

minutes resistance tempo
0-2 min. 5 warm-up
2-3 min. 15 super fast sprint
3-4 min. 10 moderate
4-5:30 min. 18 super fast sprint
5:30-7:30 min. 8 moderate
7:30-10 min. 5 moderate to easy

Yes it sounds right.  The eliptical will help you burn WAY more calories than the bike in less time.  You are using your own body weight where on the bike you are not.  If your gym has one give the Arc Trainer a try.  It is even better for your joints and you burn even more calories. 

My goal is always 45 min, I do the Random program and push as hard as i can, If i can go really fast than i increase the resistance.  i generally do not mess with the incline, or going backwards.