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Today, you’ll find countless articles about “The Fat-Burning Zone Myth”.
These articles say you gotta exercise at a high intensity to burn the most fat.
Myth or no myth, the important question is how this all affects your personal weight loss strategy.
The battle is between carbohydrates and fats.
When your body burns food to create energy, it uses oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.
By analyzing the air you breathe out, scientists can measure the amounts of these gases produced and consumed.
Then, they can determine how much fat and carbohydrate you are burning.
This number reveals the relative use of carbohydrates and fats in the energy equation.
Most people have a number that falls somewhere in between.
The less intensely you are working out, the higher the ratio of fat burning to carbohydrate burning.
As you increase the intensity, a greater percentage of your calories are burned from carbohydrates rather than fat.
In this respect, the low- to moderate-intensity fat-burning zone exists.
MORE:The Sexy Benefit of Working Out
Now for the myth part.
Minute for minute, this isn’t true.
Of those, 50 percent (or 75 calories) will come from fat.
If she increases her intensity to 85 percent of her maximum heart rate, she burns 210 calories.
So is the fat-burning zone a myth?
It all depends on your personal preference, how much time you have to exercise and your physical condition.
If you’re into high-intensity workouts, shoot for a longer duration of 30 to 60 minutes.
MORE:How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?
In a nutshell:
Good:Short duration (20 minutes total) at higher intensities.
Better:Long duration (45 minutes total) at moderate intensities.
Best:Long duration (45 minutes total) at higher intensities.
The next time you workout, also keep these points in mind: Calories are cumulative.
They don’t have to be burned in one workout session.
Also, all calories are created equal.
It doesn’t matter if you’re burning calories from formal exercise, recreation, romance or work.
Calories are calories, and burning them from any physical activity will reap benefits.
Last but not least, when it comes to exercise and weight loss, more is more.
The more you workout, the more you calories you’ll burn.
QUIZ:How Physically Active Are You?
Tracy Hafen is an exercise physiologist with 15 years of experience in personal training and corporate fitness.
