No Fat Burning Zone
All cardio machines lie to you. There is probably some kind of elliptical workout that promises to keep you in the “fat burning zone” and a table on the treadmill informing you that the zone exists when your heart beats at a certain rate. Forget it. The fat burning zone is a myth.
These devices will tell you that a zone exists somewhere in the range of from 50 to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate (which is probably in any case correctly calculated). Exercising in this zone is nothing special, and it certainly won’t make your body burn more fat than any other exercise.
Fat burning is independent of heart rate during exercise.
If you are trying to lose weight, the first thing you should pay attention to is how much you eat . It should be less than the total number of calories you burn in a day.
But can’t you burn more calories by exercising? Certainly. The longer you exercise, the more you burn; the more you exercise, the more you burn. It’s up to you how you want to plan your workouts. Walking for an hour burns about the same calories as running for half an hour.
We burn fat all the time
Your body doesn’t cling to fat on a rainy day. It burns fat all the time, including right now when you are reading this on the toilet and do not exercise at all.
Burning fat is effective, but it provides slow and steady energy. If you have to work very hard, very quickly (think: a tiger bursts into the bathroom and you need to run), you will use other sources of energy, including some of the sugar that your muscles store for this very reason. Fat is still being burned in the background, but it is not the main source of energy for those, say, 60 seconds of run the cry from the tiger.
If you use a cardio machine in the gym, your body uses a mixture of two fuels: base fat burned may have increased slightly, but a significant portion of your energy comes from burning other fuels, including stored sugar called glycogen. (I’m oversimplifying a lot; here’s a slightly more verbose version if you’d like to experiment.)
As a result, we always burn fat, and sometimes we burn other fuels as well.
So why is this called a fat burning zone ??
This supposed zone exists at a level that feels easy — a brisk walk, an easy run, an elliptical trainer or bike pace that you feel can be sustained indefinitely. If you’re new to exercise, this should calm you down. You can exercise easily and simply, but you will burn calories.
Here’s some truth: the more you exercise, the more your body needs other fuels like glycogen. Thus, in percentage terms, you burn a large proportion of fat in the fat burning zone. But this is only because you are burning fewer calories.
The real fat burning zone, where we burn the most calories from fat, is the zone we don’t work in at all. So, lounging around on the couch. Or asleep.
In which zone is it better to train?
Honestly? Anything that provides the right balance of pleasure and work to suit your goals and preferences. Think of the zone labeled “fat burning” as a light exercise zone, and the zones above it as medium to heavy exercise.
Exercise in the “fat burning zone” if:
- You want an easy workout
- You are new to exercise and the idea of training hard sounds intimidating.
- You set yourself the pace to do a very long workout.
Exercise in a higher zone if:
- You feel like you want to work hard
- You want to finish your workout as soon as possible
- You want to burn more calories in the same time
If you want to improve your overall fitness, spend time in all zones: light cardio, medium, and maximum effort intervals. There is no single best way to exercise.