Burning Fat vs. Burning Calories
Posted: Sunday, July 31, 2005
by Vernita Sherman
To lose weight and get in shape you must have a good diet and exercise regularly to burn fat. The first thing you must understand about exercise is that just because you are burning calories does not mean you are burning fat. Your main focus when you exercise should be losing body fat, and you can’t lose body fat just from burning calories. When we exercise, our bodies will start burning calories, but the calories that are burned are the calories from carbohydrates in our system. In order to burn calories from your stored fat, your body requires the presence of oxygen. There is a certain amount of oxygen that your body needs in order to start burning fat and the only way for you to measure the amount needed for your own body is to keep up with your target heart rate during exercise. Please understand that if you continue to only burn calories from carbohydrates, you will lose mostly “water weight" which leads to a decrease in your metabolism. Also, think of the calories that are burned from carbohydrates as your energy calories. If you lose too much energy calories then your muscles will not receive enough energy to increase your metabolism which indirectly burn fat. Therefore you must increase your calorie intake when you are on an exercise program to replace your burned energy calories.
During aerobic exercise, your body goes through several stages before it reaches the point where you are burning fat. You will hear people say that you are only burning sugar (carbohydrates) not fat during the first 10 minutes of exercise. This is true to a certain extent. I say this because you will continue to burn sugar past the 10 minute mark if you are not working out hard enough for your body to want more oxygen or you are working out too hard and you can’t supply your body with enough oxygen for fat burning. When you exercise you must move at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow) so your body will utilize your stored fat (not carbohydrates or sugar) as its energy source. Also remember that just because you reached the fat burning stage does not mean you will stay there. Staying at the fat burning stage once again depends on if you are moving at a pace that is right for your body. Make sure that you are within your target heart rate range.
Burning Fat Calories at rest
The only way for you to continue to burn fat calories hours after you have finished working out is through the anaerobic exercise of weight training. Weight training is the key to burning fat at rest. Weight training is an anaerobic activity that will cause you to burn more calories than aerobic exercise. The calories that you are burning during weight training exercises are mostly calories from carbohydrates (meaning you must eat even more calories per day for energy) but the calories you burn at rest are mostly calories from fat. The reason you are burning fat at rest is because weight training increases your metabolism which uses your stored fat as energy.
To make your body the ultimate fat burning machine you must do aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic (weight training) exercises.
This article was written by Vernita Sherman of Ultimate Fat Burning Secrets. Ultimate Fat Burning Secrets is dedicated to exposing fat burning secrets that weight loss companies are keeping from you. Vernita teaches the truth about how to permanently lose weight the healthy natural way, and she is commited to guiding you to weight loss resources that she has personally tried and know for a fact work. You can learn more about these resources and receive a free fat burning course at ultimate fat burning secrets.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)misinformation. you can not really select the type of calories you burn like perserving carb calories and burning only fat. there are ratios of burning fat and carb for certain workouts, but not 0% carbs and 100% fats. more like 60/40 max.
I think the commenter has not read the article properly. For example, if you increase your muscle you burn more calories than before, when you're at rest (ie. after your exercise program has ended for the day) and that is going to be predominantly fat calories. Do some further research and you will find that out from whatever source you prefer. It is also good advice to increase your calorie intake following exercise as that replaces the lost glycogen in your muscles and you can do that with a mainly protein snack with a lesser amt of carbohydrate (like a lean ham sandwich - but you must also rehydrate your muscles too). It is also good advice to know your maximum heart rate (or your target heart rate) and not to work above or below it for the most "efficient" use of your exercise time ie. the most effective workouts.
i did not like it but thanks for trying
It's true that your body burns a higher percentage of calories at a low intensity. So if you burn 10 calories maybe 9 would be from fat. However, your body won't completely stop burning fat until you are at nearly 100% intensity. You still burn fat when you increase the intensity, but you burn more calories too. You might burn 20 calories in the same time period, and 10 would be from fat. And when you stop exercising you continue to burn calories to replenish depleted energy stores. Therefore high intensity is better if you can keep it up long enough. Or try intervals- high intensity one minute, low intensity the next, alternately.
So from what I understood its better to do your cardio after your intense workout?
Target heart rate is all that matters, oh and pay attention to the food pyramide and just eat protein, less fats fried foods and sugars there ya go, and walk to subwayThank u soo much
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