What is fat burning? Things to know to increase fat burning

You’ve certainly heard ads like “eating this will help increase fat burning” or “exercising this will burn fat faster”. So what is fat burning? Do we have to put the fat in the fire to burn it? Let’s find out in the article below.

Your body stores calories as fat to keep you alive and safe.

If you intend to reduce the amount of fat stored in your body, learn how to burn fat through various types of exercise instead of looking for quick fixes that are unlikely to work.

What is fat burning?

Fat burning is a concept that describes how your body “burns” fat as energy for the body to perform daily activities through exercise and diet.

Your body will store excess energy from eating as fat for you to use when needed.

Fat burning mainly happens during physical exercise but it can also happen when you are at rest because your body still needs energy to support vital activities such as breathing, blood circulation, and even breathing. think.

How does your body burn fat?

If you’re trying to reduce your body fat stores, knowing how your body uses calories for fuel can make a difference in how you approach weight management.

Your body gets energy from fat (or fat) by breaking down triglycerides (stored fat) into fatty acids and glycerol for use by cells.

Your body also uses energy from carbohydrates and protein, but your body decides which source to use for energy depending on the type of activity you’re doing.

Most people only want their bodies to use fat for energy, because the more fat you use for fuel, the less body fat you have. However, using more fat does not mean that fat will be reduced more.

Learn the best way to burn fat by understanding some basics about how your body gets and uses energy.1

The body primarily uses fats and carbohydrates as fuel for most daily activities. The proportion of fuel used from the above two sources will vary depending on your activities. Small amounts of protein are used during exercise, but it is mainly used for muscle recovery after exercise.

High-intensity exercises, such as fast running, force the body to rely on carbs for fuel. Your body will break down carbs into energy more efficiently than the pathways that break down fat for energy (because breaking down fat takes longer). Fat is used for energy more than carbs when you exercise for long periods of time.

This is a very simple look at how your body uses energy and will make your workout plan easier.

Burning more calories is more important than thinking about how to use fat for energy. The harder you workout, the more calories you burn.

If you want to lose weight, it doesn’t matter what type of fuel you use. What matters is how many calories you “burn”.

Think of it this way, when you sit or sleep, you are in prime fat burning mode. But you know clearly that sitting and sleeping more is not a way to lose body fat. So it can be seen that burning more fat does not mean you lose more weight.

As long as you eat more than your body needs, your body will continue to accumulate fat.

The truth about the fat burning zone

Exercising at lower intensities uses more fat for energy.2 This basic premise was the starting point for fat burning zone theory, the idea being to work within a cadence zone. certain heart rate (about 55% to 65% of your maximum heart rate) will allow your body to burn more fat.

Over the years, this theory has become so ingrained in our exercise experience that we see it promoted in books, charts, websites, magazines and even on in-room cardio machines. do exercise. The problem is that it is misleading about fat burning.

Low-intensity training may be great, but it doesn’t necessarily burn more fat from your body. One way to increase calorie burn is to exercise at a higher intensity.

This doesn’t mean you should avoid low-intensity exercise if you want to burn more fat. There are some specific things you can do to burn more fat, and it all starts with how often and how long you exercise.

Burn fat with a combination of forms of Cardio exercise

You may be confused about exactly how hard to work during cardio. You might even think that intense exercise is the only way to burn fat. But you can burn more calories and you don’t have to spend as much time doing it.

There are a number of practices that can help you stimulate each of your energy systems, protect you from injury from overusing them, and help you enjoy your workouts more. You can set up a cardio program that includes a variety of exercises at varying intensities.

High-Intensity Cardio

For our purposes, high-intensity cardio falls around 80% to 90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Or, if you don’t use heart rate zones, somewhere between 6-8 on a 10-point perceived exertion scale. This means exercising at a level that feels difficult and makes you breathless to speak in complete sentences.

But you won’t go all out to make that workout sprint as fast as possible. Some high-intensity exercises can be helpful for weight loss as well as improving endurance and aerobic capacity.

You can get the same benefits from short bursts of exercise spaced throughout the day as you would from continuous exercise. For example, a 150-pound person will burn about 341 calories after running at 6 mph for 30 minutes.3

If this person walked at 3.5 mph for the same amount of time, they would burn 136 calories.

However, the number of calories you can burn isn’t the whole story. Too much high-intensity exercise per week can put you at risk such as:

• Exhausted
• I hate exercising more and more
• Inconsistent training
• Exercising too hard
• Injury due to overexertion

If you don’t have a lot of experience exercising, you may not want to work out as breathless and challenging as the above. If you have any medical condition or injury, consult your doctor before exercising.

If you’re doing cardio a few days per week, you’ll probably only want one or two workouts in the high-intensity range.4 You can use other workouts to target different areas of fitness (like endurance) and allows your body to train and recover.

Here are some examples of how to incorporate high-intensity exercises.

One way to incorporate high-intensity training is to exercise at a fast pace. You can use any activity or machine to work out for 20 minutes at a fast pace, but the idea is to maintain activity in the high-intensity zone throughout the workout. The recommended duration is usually 20 minutes and most people won’t want it to last longer than that.

Tabata training is another form of high-intensity interval training in which you work very hard for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat for 4 minutes. When doing this exercise seriously, you will feel short of breath and unable to talk.

Additionally, interval training is a great way to incorporate high-intensity training without doing it continuously. Replace a difficult stretch (e.g., running at a fast pace for 30 to 60 seconds) with a recovery stretch (e.g., walking for 1 to 2 minutes). Repeat this series for the duration of your workout, usually about 20 to 30 minutes.

Moderate-Intensity Cardio (Moderate-Intensity Cardio)

There are different definitions of what constitutes moderate-intensity exercise, but it usually falls around 70% to 80% of your maximum heart rate. That would be a level 4 to 6 on a 10-point scale of perceived exertion. You breathe more quickly than usual, but can talk without much difficulty.5

Schedule your day around exercise instead of trying to squeeze it in when you can. Making your workouts a priority will increase your chances of accomplishing your goals.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) often recommends this level of intensity in its workout guidelines. The lower part of this range typically includes the fat burning zone.

Moderate-intensity exercise also has some great benefits. For example, even light exercise can improve your health while reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Additionally, it takes time to build endurance and strength to handle challenging exercises. Moderate workouts allow you to perform at a more comfortable pace, which means you can stick more closely to your weight loss workout program.

You can also usually reach a moderate heart rate zone with a variety of activities. Even raking leaves or sweeping the floor can fall into that category if you do it vigorously enough.

Example of moderate intensity exercise

To control your weight, you may want the majority of your cardio to fall into the moderate range. Some examples include:

• Workout on a cardio machine for 30 to 45 minutes
• A quick walk
• Ride a bicycle at an average speed

Low-Intensity Activity

Low-intensity cardio is below 60% to 70% of your MHR, or about a level 3 to 4 on a 10-point scale of perceived exertion. This level of intensity is definitely one of the most comfortable areas of exercise, helping you maintain a pace that isn’t too strenuous and doesn’t pose much of a challenge.

In fact, along with the idea that it burns more fat, low-intensity exercise has become popular. However, as we know, working out at a variety of intensities is ideal for weight loss.2 But that doesn’t mean low-intensity exercise doesn’t have a purpose.

It involves long, slow activities that you feel like you could do all day. Even better, it includes activities you usually enjoy, such as walking, gardening, cycling or a gentle stretching routine.

Low-intensity cardio can be something you do all day by going extra rounds when shopping, taking the stairs, parking farther from the entrance, and doing more chores around the house.

Exercises like Pilates and yoga are lower intensity but help develop your core, flexibility and balance. They can be part of a comprehensive routine.

See more: 25 ways to reduce excess fat that have been proven effective by science

The importance of regular exercise

It is obvious that regular exercise can help you burn more. But it’s not just about the calories you’re burning. It’s also about the adaptations your body makes when you exercise regularly. Many of these adaptations lead directly to the ability to burn more fat without much effort.

Here are some benefits of regular exercise

• Become more efficient: Your body becomes more efficient at delivering and extracting oxygen. Simply put, this helps your cells burn fat more effectively.
• Better circulation: This allows fatty acids to move more effectively through the blood and into the muscles. That means fat is more available to fuel the body.
• Increases the number and size of mitochondria: These are cellular powerhouses that provide energy inside each cell of your body.

Lift weights to burn fat

Adding muscle by lifting weights and doing other resistance exercises can also be surprisingly more effective at burning fat.6

While many people focus heavily on Cardio for weight loss, strength training is an important workout in any weight loss routine.

Here are some benefits of weight training.

Burn calories

If you lift weights at a higher intensity, not only can you increase your calorie burn during exercise, but even after you stop exercising and rest, your body will continue to burn fat.

Increase metabolism

Diet-only weight loss can reduce a person’s resting metabolic rate by up to 20% per day (because your body automatically goes into “survival” mode when lacking calories). . Lifting weights and maintaining muscle helps maintain your metabolism, even when you’re cutting back on calories.

Preserve muscle mass

If you are restricting calories, you risk losing muscle (because muscle protein will be used to fuel the body when it is lacking energy). Muscle also increases metabolic activity, so when you lose muscle, you also lose the extra calories burned by muscle. Losing muscle when losing weight also causes another consequence: your body will sag and no longer be toned, which is also something no one wants after losing weight, especially women.

To start, choose a basic total-body workout and do it about twice a week, alternating at least one day. As you get stronger, you can do more exercises, increase the intensity, or add more days of strength training. It may take a few weeks but eventually you will see and feel a difference in your body.

To burn more fat with strength training, here are some strategies you can use.

• Incorporate circuit training: Circuit training is a great way to burn more calories by combining high-intensity cardio along with strength training exercises. You keep your heart rate elevated by moving from exercise to exercise with short or no rest while focusing on both cardio and strength in the same exercise.
• Lift heavy weights: If you are a beginner, you should gradually work your way up to lifting heavy weights. When your body is ready to do more, lifting heavy weights will force your body to adapt by building more lean muscle tissue to handle the extra weight.
• Use multi-joint movements: Movements that involve multiple joints (e.g., squats, lunges, deadlifts, and triceps dips) help you lift more weight and burn more calories while training your body in a functional way.

If you want a more structured program, try building a four-week gym routine that includes a cardio and strength training routine that allows you to gradually increase your intensity.

See more: Does the Fat Burner supplement really help you lose fat?

Epilogue

When it comes to burning more fat, you have to work at it. The good news is that it doesn’t take much activity to push your body into fat-burning mode.

Try incorporating some type of activity each day, even if it’s just a brisk walk. Then build on that over time. You will soon burn more fat. It may also be helpful to work with a registered dietitian or personal trainer to develop a more personalized program.

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