Hi I have some questions:
1. If you want to lose those chubby cheeks, there is no certain exercise to do this?
There is no " cheek " exercise to target fat loss in your cheeks - i.e like chewing gum.
The thing to remember is, fat loss is a systemic process - i.e when you lose body fat, it'll come off ( proportionately ) from all areas of your entire body - you can't target just one area like your face /cheeks. That said, generally speaking, you tend to ' see ' fat reduction in men starting in their loves handles first, then in their stomach / hips and finally in areas like hands/feet & face ( i.e cheeks ) last. The pattern is somewhat different for women.
To ensure maximum weight loss, pure cardio? 30-60 mins? 70% heart rate?
Striclty from an exercise viewpoint and the perspective of the impact of the time spent actually exercising itself ( i.e not any post exercise benefits ) it is all about calories. All other things being equal, the more calories you burn, the more weight you'll lose. The more you exercise ( i.e. frequently, longer, harder ) the more calories you will burn. So, 1 hour of jogging will burn more caloires than 30 minutes of jogging ; running at 8 mph for 20 minutes will burn more calories than running at 5 mph for 20 minutes ; running 5 times a week will burn more calories than running 3 times a week. To maximize calorie burns for weight loss from exercise itself , you simply want to burn as many calories as you can either by exercising more often, exercising longer or exercising harder - or some combo of the 3. But, to do it an an " optimal way ", you want to burn as many calories as you can in the shortest amount of time possible.
So, the moral of the story, is to focus more on calories instead of heart-rates.
3. What percentage of weight loss is due to diet?
If you didn't touch your diet at all and only introduced weight training and cardio for a few months - then diet is " zero " %. Ditto - if your only changed your diet and did not do any weight training and cardio - it's " 100 %".
The " optimal approach " to sustained fat loss is to focus on a healthy calorie appropriate diet first, in conjunction with a somewhat lesser focus on regimens of resisitance training and then, some cardio. But the #1 focus is your diet - no workout in the world can overcome a really lousy diet IMO.
4. How much of a calorie decrease should one do to their diet?
The " rules of thumb" you see most often cited is 500+/- calories a day or 15%-20% of your daily maintenance calories, or 12-13 calories per lb. of bodyweight.
Your personal data and goals will determine which approach - if any - is best suited for you.
