Burn notice

1 comment July 17th, 2008

You may have heard of the concept of working out at low to moderate intensities to stay “in the fat-burning zone.”

But, if the purpose of your workout is to help lose weight, you need to work at a higher intensity, say 70 percent or more of your maximum heart rate, if you use a heart rate monitor or a rate of perceived exertion that you would classify as hard or very hard.

In a cardio workout, this might mean adding hills to or mixing in a few minutes of a faster pace with your regular pace during a run or simply increasing the grade during your walk on a treadmill.

Basically, you want something that makes you work closer to your maximum heart rate — read work harder.

It’s true that the body burns more fat during a lower intensity workout — something like 50 percent of the calories burned in exercise at 60 to 65 percent of your maximum heart rate are from fat, but as exercise intensity increases the body burns less fat and more carbohydrates.

 It also burns more total calories, and burning more calories than you consume is ultimately what you’re after for weight loss.