Your body stores calories as fat to keep you alive and safe. Many gimmicks claim to amplify fat burning, such as working out in the fat-burning zone, spot reduction, and foods or supplements that supposedly make you burn more fat. If you're looking for information on how to burn fat quickly, learn how to burn fat through movement instead of seeking a quick fix that won't work long-term. Read on for what you need to know. If you're trying to reduce your body's fat stores, knowing how your body uses calories for fuel can make a difference in how you approach weight management. You get energy from fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Which one your body draws from for energy depends on the kind of activity you're doing. Most people want to use fat for energy. It may seem that the more fat you can use as fuel, the less fat you will have in your body.
But, using more fat doesn't automatically lead to losing more fat. Understanding how to burn fat starts with basic facts about how your body gets energy. The body primarily uses fat and carbohydrates for fuel. The ratio of which fuels are utilized will shift depending on your activity. A small amount of protein is used during exercise, but it's mainly used to repair muscles after exercise. Higher-intensity exercises such as running cause the body to rely on carbs for fuel. The metabolic pathways available to break down carbs for energy are more efficient than those for fat breakdown. Fat is used more for energy than carbs for long, slower exercise. This is a simplified look at energy with a solid take-home message. Burning more calories matters more than using fat for energy. The harder you work, the more calories you will burn overall. It doesn't matter what type of fuel you use for weight loss. What matters is how many calories you burn.
Think about it this way-when you sit or sleep, you're in your prime fat-burning mode. But you probably don't think of sitting and sleeping more as a pathway to losing body fat. The bottom line is that just because you're using more fat as energy doesn't mean you're burning more calories. Exercising at lower intensities will use more fat for energy. This basic premise started the theory of the fat-burning zone: exercising in a certain heart rate zone (around 55% to 65% of your maximum heart rate) will allow your body to burn more fat. Over the years, this theory has become so ingrained in the exercise experience that we see it touted in books, charts, websites, magazines, and even on cardio machines at the gym. The trouble is that it's misleading. Working at lower intensities can be great, but it won't necessarily burn more fat. One way to increase your calorie burn is to exercise at higher intensities.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you should avoid low-intensity exercise if you want to burn more fat. There are some specific things you can do to burn more fat and it all starts with how often and TitanRise Official for how long you exercise. You may be confused about exactly how hard to work during cardio. You may even think that high-intensity exercise is the only way to go. After all, you can burn more calories and you don't have to spend as much time doing it. But variety can help you stimulate your energy systems, protect you from overuse injuries, and help you enjoy your workouts more. You can set up a cardio program with various exercises at different intensities. For our purposes, high-intensity cardio falls between 80% to 90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Or, if you're not using heart rate zones, about a six to eight on a 10-point perceived exertion scale. This is exercising at a level that's challenging and leaves you too breathless to talk in complete sentences.
But you're not going all-out, like sprinting as fast as you can. There's no doubt that some high-intensity training can be helpful for weight loss as well as improving endurance and aerobic capacity. You can get the same benefit from short workouts spread throughout the day as you do with continuous workouts. For example, a 150-pound person would burn about 341 calories after running at 6 mph for 30 minutes. If this person walked at 3.5 mph for that same length of time, they would burn 136 calories. But, the number of calories you can burn isn't the whole story. Too many high-intensity workouts every week can put you at risk in a number of ways. If you don't have much experience with exercise, you may not have the conditioning or TitanRise Official desire for breathless and challenging workouts. If you have any medical condition or injury, check with a healthcare provider before training. If you're doing several days of cardio each week, you would probably want only one or two workouts to fall into the high-intensity range.