Oh Where, Oh Where is My Fat Burning Zone?
by Cheryl Wagner
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Oh Where, Oh Where is My Fat Burning Zone? |
It may not be a fountain of youth, but a workout that would magically burn off fat while getting you in shape would be almost as good! Here are some tips for how to get into that magical 'fat burning' zone when exercising.
There appear to be two principles involved in burning fat while exercising:
Paradoxically, the fitter you are, the more efficiently your body burns fat while exercising. But even the aerobically impoverished can \ take steps to burn fat.
As you begin to exercise, all of your energy comes from glycogen stored in your muscles. However, over the next 20 minutes, fat breakdown (plus some blood glucose) begins to supply about half of your energy requirement. As exercise continues, fat catabolism increases - supplying up to 70% of the energy requirement. Low-intensity exercise (or exercise at 25% of aerobic capacity), even for relatively short periods, is also fueled almost totally by fat combustion.
Fat is a great source of energy. For example, the body's energy reserves from carbohydrates could power high intensity running for about an hour and a half. However, the fat reserves would last 75 times longer. While it outlasts carbohydrates as an energy source, fat oxidation produces energy at a slower rate which is one of the reasons for the decrease in your exercise capacity after several hours of exertion - when you're primarily burning fat as fuel.
The contribution of fat to the energy burned during exercise requires its release from the fat storage sites and delivery to muscle tissue.
The fitter you are, the better your body is at burning fat and delivering it to the muscle tissues. Depending on a person's state of nutrition
and fitness, the intensity and duration of the activity, and their fat 'supplies', fat-burning will supply anywhere from 30-80% of the energy
for physical activity. With aerobic training the athlete acquires:
All of these affect how well the person can utilize fat as a fuel for activity. World class endurance athletes can perform at 85-90% of their maximum aerobic capacity for long periods.
Of course it's probably true that the better your body is at fat-burning, the less you need to burn that excess fat. Regardless, following the above principles will help you 'feel the burn' in a whole new way.
Source: Essentials of Exercise Physiology (second edition) by William D. McArdle, Frank I. Katch, and Vitor L. Katch Copyright 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.