To keep you alive and safe, your body stores calories as fat. Unfortunately, numerous gimmicks claim to increase fat burning, such as working out in the fat-burning area, spot reduction, and supplements and food that ostensibly cause you to burn more fat. Instead of looking for a quick fix that is unlikely to work, discover how to burn fat through a range of exercises if you want to cut down the amount of fat stored in your body. Here’s what you should know.
The Fundamentals of Fat Burning
Understanding how your body uses calories for fuel can change how you approach weight management if you’re aiming to minimize your body’s fat stores. Fat, carbs, and protein provide you with energy. The one your body uses for energy depends on the activity you’re doing. The majority of people prefer to get their energy from fat. It may appear that the more fat you can use as fuel, the less fat your body will have. However, using more fat does not automatically result in reducing more fat. Understanding the best technique to burn fat begins with understanding how your body obtains energy. The body’s primary fuel sources are fat and carbs. Depending on your activities, the ratio of fuels used will change. Protein is used in modest amounts during training but primarily to repair muscles after exercise.
Additional Fundamentals
High-intensity sports, such as quick running, force the body to rely on carbohydrates for sustenance. The metabolic pathways for breaking down carbohydrates for energy are more efficient than those for fat breakdown. For longer, slower exercise, fat is used for energy more than carbs. This is a relatively straightforward explanation of energy with a strong take-home message. It is more important to burn more calories than to use fat for energy. The more calories you burn overall, the harder you work. When it comes to losing weight, it makes no difference what fuel you use. What’s essential is the number of calories you burn. The fundamental line is that consuming more fat as energy does not imply burning more calories.
The Fat Burning Zone Myth
Lower-intensity exercise burns more fat for energy. This basic notion sparked the hypothesis of the fat-burning zone, which holds that operating in a specific heart rate zone (about 55% to 65% of your maximal heart rate) can help your body burn more fat. This assumption has been so embedded in our exercise experience that it is now promoted in books, charts, websites, publications, and even on cardio equipment at the gym.
Working at lower intensities is beneficial but will not necessarily result in more fat loss. Exercising at a higher intensity is one technique to boost your calorie burn. This does not necessarily imply that if you want to burn more fat, you should skip low-intensity exercise. You can do particular things to burn additional fat, and it all begins with how frequently and for how long you exercise.
Burn Fat Through a Combination of Cardio and Strength Training
You can be perplexed about how intense to work throughout a cardio workout. You might even believe that high-intensity exercise is the only option. After all, you can burn more calories while spending less time doing so. However, having some variation can assist you in stimulating your energy systems, prevent you from overuse issues, and make your workouts more enjoyable. Therefore, you can design a cardio program incorporating several workouts of varying intensities.
High-Intensity Cardiovascular Exercise
High-intensity cardio falls between 80 and 90 percent of your maximum heart rate for our purposes (MHR). Aim for a six to eight on a 10-point perceived exertion scale if you’re not utilizing heart rate zones. This translates to exercising at a level that seems complicated and leaves you too out of breath to speak in entire phrases. But you’re not sprinting as fast as you possibly can. Nevertheless, there’s no denying that specific high-intensity training can aid with weight loss, endurance, and aerobic ability.
If you undertake many days of cardio each week, you should limit yourself to one or two high-intensity sessions. Other workouts can be used to target different fitness areas (such as endurance) while your body recovers. Here are some ideas for incorporating high-intensity workouts. Exercising at a quick speed is one approach, including high-intensity workouts. You can utilize any activity or machine for a 20-minute fast-paced workout, but the goal is to stay in the high-intensity work zone.
Moderate-Intensity Cardiovascular Exercise
There are various definitions of moderate-intensity exercise, but it commonly falls between 70% and 80% of your maximal heart rate. Moderate-intensity workouts are also beneficial. Even minor exercise, for example, can enhance your health and lessen your chance of heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. It also takes time to develop the endurance and strength needed to do strenuous activities. In addition, moderate workouts help you to work more comfortably, which means you may stick to your program more consistently. A variety of activities can potentially get you into moderate heart rate zones. For weight loss, you should probably keep the majority of your cardio sessions at a moderate level. Some examples are a 30- to 45-minute cardio machine workout, a brisk walk, or riding a bike at a medium pace.
Low-Intensity Exercise
Low-intensity exercise is defined as exercise that is less than 60% to 70% of your MHR, or a level three to five on a 10-point perceived effort scale. This degree of intensity is, without a doubt, one of the most comfortable training zones, keeping you at a speed that isn’t too taxing or difficult. Low-intensity exercise is popular due to this aspect and the belief that it burns more fat. However, as we’ve seen, working out at a variety of intensities is good for losing weight. But that doesn’t mean that low-intensity exercise is pointless.
It entails long, slow activities that you may do all day. Even better, it incorporates things you already enjoy, such as going for a walk, gardening, riding a bike, or stretching gently. Low-intensity exercise can be done throughout the day by doing an extra lap while shopping, using the stairway, parking farther away from the entrance, and doing more physical duties around the house. Pilates and yoga are low-intensity exercises that help you build your core, flexibility, and balance. They can be incorporated into a well-rounded routine.
The Importance of Regular Exercise
It may appear evident that regular exercise will help you burn weight. However, it is not only about the calories you expend. It’s also about the changes your body undergoes when you workout regularly. Many of these adaptations directly contribute to your ability to burn more fat without even trying.
Benefits
Here are some of the advantages of steady exercise.
• Improve efficiency: Your body improves its efficiency in delivering and absorbing oxygen. This enhances the efficiency with which your cells burn fat.
• Improved circulation permits fatty acids to travel more efficiently through the bloodstream and into the muscle. This means that fat is more easily accessible for feeding the body.
• Increase the quantity and size of mitochondria: Mitochondria are the cellular power plants that provide energy to every cell in your body.
Lift Weights to Lose Weight
Increasing muscle mass by lifting weights and performing other resistance activities can also aid in fat loss. While many people focus on cardio for weight loss, there’s no denying that strength training is an cruical part of any weight loss regimen. Here are some of the advantages of weight training.
Consume Calories
Lifting weights at a higher intensity can boost your afterburn or the number of calories you burn after your workout. You burn calories throughout your workouts, but your body continues to burn calories afterward as it returns to its resting state.
Maintain Metabolism Going
A diet-only weight-loss strategy could reduce a person’s resting metabolic rate by up to 20% every day. Lifting weights and retaining muscle mass might assist keep your metabolism going even if you’re lowering calories.
Maintain Muscle Mass
You risk losing muscle if you reduce your calorie intake. Muscle is metabolically active; thus, losing it means losing the extra calorie burn that muscles produce. To begin, select a simple total-body workout and perform it twice a week, with at least one day in between. Then, you can do additional exercises, increase the intensity, or add more days of strength training as you get stronger. It can take several weeks, but you will notice and feel a difference in your body.
Strategies
Here are some ways to burn more fat while strength training.
• Include circuit training: Combining high-intensity cardio with strength training workouts is an excellent method to burn more calories. In addition, you keep your heart rate high by alternating between exercises with little or no rest while focusing on cardio and strength in the same session.
• Lift hefty weights: If you’re a beginner, you should gradually work your way up to heavy weights. Lifting high weights forces your body to adapt by growing lean muscular tissue to bear the greater strain once it is ready.
• Use compound movements: Movements that incorporate more than one muscle group (for example, squats, lunges, deadlifts, and triceps dips) allow you to lift more weight and burn more calories while training your body in a functional manner.
Try a four-week slow build program, which includes a schedule of cardio and strength sessions that allow you to gradually raise your intensity.
Kim’s Final Thoughts…
It would be best to put in the effort when it comes to burning extra fat. The good news is that getting your body into fat-burning gear doesn’t take much exercise. Try to incorporate some activity into your daily routine, even if it’s just a quick walk. Then, over time, expand on it. You’ll soon be on your way to burning more fat. Working with a qualified nutritionist or professional personal trainer to build a more personalized program can also be beneficial.
