How can I effectively lose weight? What should my target heart rate be to lose more fat than muscle.?

I'm 19 years old, turning 20 in December. I'm 5'8" and is EXTREMELY overweight (250 lbs). I have now decided to lose weight and am willing to really work hard for it. I'm cutting down my caloric intake to the prescribed level but I'm not really familiar with the excercise that I should do. I have a stationary bike but no treadmill. I know that running is the best way to lose weight but can biking be a good substitute? Also, how can I lose the inches? Thanks!
Answer:
I was going to bypass this, but all the answers so far were really confused......If I were you, I'd stick with the bike for a while. Trying to run at that weight would destroy your knees and ankles in pretty short order. Run later after you've dropped 80lbs or so."Fat burning zone" is kind of a misconception. During exercise you burn both triglycerides (fat) and glycogen (carb) stored in your muscles, bloodstream, and liver. At lower intensity, roughly 60-70% of your max heartrate, you will burn your highest percentage of fat relative to glycogen. You will burn even more fat calories at higher intensities, but it will be a smaller percent of total calories burned. Don't worry about 'zones', or even heart rate. Its unlikely that a calculated max heart rate, lactate threshold, or fat burning zone would be of practical use to you. In your present condition, you want to go at a pace you can continue for a long period of time in order to burn the most calories. When you've got to the point where you can go for an hour without stopping, pick up the pace.When you get bored, and you will, find something to do for entertainment. I spend a lot of winter hours on a bike trainer when weather or road conditions won't allow running and riding outdoors. I watch NASCAR, football, or old Ironman videos, sprinting the commercials, or play video games while riding. I especially like NCAA Football. Punt returns get me spinning pretty hard.For some reason, indoor riding seems to be harder on the butt than outdoor, so I get off and do some light lifting every half hour or 45 minutes. I'm not sure what you mean by 'losing muscle'. There's an awful lot of pseudo-scientific BS floating around most gyms. Exercise of any kind is going to build muscle, not tear it down. Cycling may not build bulk, but take a close look at Lance Armstrong's legs sometime...... lean, but frightening. Pound for pound, I guarantee he's stronger than anyone you know.

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At the age of 19 your maximum heart rate would be ~200
(220 minus age)
Sites vary some based on their clinical focus, but your Target Heart Rate is usually based on both your age and your resting heart rate, (which as you become more fit should decrease some) so the THR will increase as your fitness improves.Due to your size, I would say startinig out, to avoid having your heart rate get above 100, but try to maintain at least 90bpm for 20 min or more.
Once you've been exercising regularly for no less than 2 weeks, you can bump that up by 20-30bpm and bump it up another 20-40bpm after 2 months of regular exercise

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If you look for lose weight without diet or go to gym and in the right way go to (please if you are serious on losing weight go to)
http://weightloss-power.com/?refid=imana...
and there you can found more information about your body fat and how you can management you weight ,I really use this program and lost 4Kg in just two week ,I hope this will help and good luck

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The target heart rate is different for every single person. It all depends on how much you weigh. There is a formula for coming up with your TARGET HEART RATE. Here is the formula for figuring out your target heart rate:Male Max HR:210 - 1/2 your age - 5% of total body weight (in pounds) + 4Female Max Hr:210 - 1/2 your age - 5% of total body weight (in pounds) + 0
I know for me, my target heart rate was a LOT lower than what I had me keeping it at. You actually burn more fat by going at a slower pace. When your target heart rate is too high when you're exercising it can be good for your heart, but it won't necessarily help you lose the wanted fat that we all would like to lose!

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To successfully lose weight, you must carry out
a plan to balance your caloric intake with exercise.
Ideally, dieting should be done by eating a nutritionally
balanced, low-calorie diet and increasing physical activity.
I found useful informations at

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