truth about fat burning zones

Fact 1: The cardio machine manufacturers have come up with the "fat burning zone" and "calories burned" to market their equipment and make it attractive and easy for people to use, just like every other great invention of mankind that claims to slim and tone you without having to expend the necessary effort. All of the infomercials and supermarket magazines lie, all of them! If you are looking for a shortcut you are setting yourself up for failure and will never see results. Aside from the treadmill, ellipticals, stationary bikes, and any other cardio machines are mostly over calibrated, some as much as 25%-30%. They don't ask your age, resting metabolic rate, sex or anything, but they give you a "value" for calories burned. HHHHHHmm. They're either very intelligent machines or marketed falsely. You guess!

Fact 2: The fat burning zone is one where you are working at a lower output rate (less effort, less taxing) but are in a higher fat to carb ratio, meaning, more of your energy comes from burning fat than burning carbs. I will NOW reveal the trick to it all: if you are working harder and your total output is much higher, even at a less favorable ratio you are burning more TOTAL fat (and total calories) than at a lower effort. Let me explain it again: say you are working in your "fat burning zone": that is 70% of your heart rate, that burns 600 calories per hr. Your fat burning zone's ratio will burn 40% fat of 600. That's 240 "FAT" calories. OR, you put some real effort into your workout and do some high intensity interval training with short bursts of taxing intervals such as hills and/or sprints, the kind of workout that burns 900 calories per hr and gets your heart pumping at 85% MHR. Your fat burning is not optimal (as far as a ratio) but at 30%, you are still burning 270 "FAT" calories.

Say that you have worked for a half an hour in your fat burning zone (I'm sick of writing this already) than you got a 300 total calorie negative with 240 of those from your fat a... Say that you have worked ABOVE your fat burning zone for half an hour than you get a total of 450 negative cals with 270 of those from your fat a...Well, which is more?

Fact 3: If your goal is to burn a certain amount of calories, doing high intensity interval training will be more effective (faster) hence cutting your workout time.

A good general rule for judging where the heck you are: if you are panting and gasping for air and dripping sweat you are NOT in your "fat burning zone" but you are smart and are working hard. If you are reading a novel and chatting with your neighbor you are both in your comfort zones and are the average gym goers who will never shed a pound. But you are in the "zzzzzone"... the stupid, lazy, unproductive one... at the end of the day it all depends on one thing. Where do you want to be, what is your goal? If it is to make friends and socialize than who am I to judge? This blog is not for those though:) tah-tah