The TRUTH About the Fat-Burning Zone

When I first set out on my fat loss journey from fat to fit, a lot of (misinformed) people told me that the only surefire way there is to losing fat is by exercising in the Fat Burning Zone. The theory is that in this zone of exercise intensity, the body uses stored fat for energy. At 60-70% of your maximum heart rate, 85% of your calories burned in this zone are fats, 5% are proteins and 10% are carbohydrates.

In a nutshell, the theory was that if I worked out at this pace, my body would burn only fat for energy. In other words, to get into this “fat-burning zone”, I needed to commit to hours of low to moderate intensity cardio every week so that I could shed my flab.

I’m sure you’ve heard this advice before. It's one of the biggest misconceptions in the fitness and weight-loss world, so I decided to spend some extra time writing about it. If long, slow, steady-state aerobics was the key to fat loss every person who crosses the finish line of a marathon and all of those people you see at the gym who are endlessly on the treadmill would have very low body fat. This just isn't the case.

Endurance exercise solely for fat loss does not make sense. Your goal as an endurance athlete is to become efficient and better at running, biking or swimming. A different plan of attack needs to be used to burn fat--a more effective and efficient plan.

The “Fat Burning Zone” has been greatly misinterpreted. The fat-burning zone is a concept that the body burns a greater amount of fat at lower-intensity aerobic exercise than it does at higher intensities. Actually, the body burns a greater percentage of fat at lower intensities than at higher intensities. At lower intensities, the body may burn 50 percent of the calories from fat, while at higher intensities it may only burn 35 percent. But at higher intensities you burn way more total calories—and more fat calories overall—than you do at lower intensities.

That is a key difference!!!

Remember, metabolism is largely a function of how much muscle you carry. Since aerobics does little to even maintain muscle, let alone build it, unlike resistance training, your metabolism is not increased while at rest.

You can forget all about long, boring cardio exercises with the BusyBod Workout for Fat Loss, we’ll have none of that!

Posted by George Louris, CFT at 5:29 AM

Related Posts :