I found this study, reported by WemMD, very encouraging for people who have heart problems. Basically, it states that:

“People with heart failure can regain 70% of their exercise capacity if they stick to an exercise program,” says Axel Linke, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Linke worked on both studies.

70% is a big number and that heart disease doesn’t have to be the end of activities you enjoy.

One of the important ingredients to lose weight and keep it off is getting that metabolism burning faster and a key way to do that is increase your muscle mass because it burns more calories pound per pound as compared to fat.  The diet blog has two excellent posts on weight training here and here.

Really Useful Fitness Blog has a good post on 4 ways to lose fat faster. I’ve basically been doing all four to do good results. Here’s 2 more to add:

1) Wait 15 minutes if you have a food craving.

Along with the tip to eat frequently throughout the day, I also have noticed that for me, my food cravings go away after a small snack of a few calories and waiting 15 minutes or so. If I’m consumed by the thoughts of eating a piece of pie, I force myself to wait 15 minutes and eat an apple instead. By the time the 15 minutes are up, I end up feeling satiated and have forgotten about the pie entirely.

2) Eat a small snack first thing in the morning within 30 minutes of waking.

One tip I heard which has been helpful is to eat a small snack within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning. Supposedly, it revs up your metabolism early in the day. Up until I started this crusade to get healthy, I used to skip breakfast in the morning and grab a cup of coffee instead. Nowadays, I grab a light snack upon waking up and then walk the dog for 30 minutes, and I feel a lot more awake and active by the time I hop in the car to get to work.

Read the whole post at Real Useful Fitness.