What is 'fat burning' cardio?

asjt678

Hello All:

I was doing a Jillian Michaels' video the other day. She said something that I hear often and wanted some clarification on. She said, "We need to get your heart up in order to burn the fat." I've heard variations of this before:

HIIT burns more fat...
Workout in your fat burning zone...get your heart rate up
Slow and steady cardio will never melt fat...
Doing cardio in the a.m. burns more fat...
Counting steps is useless. It only works if it is "active" steps taken continuously...

The list goes on and on...

This goes against the CICO theory I see on MFP.

Is any of this valid? If so, should I be logging steps or cardio that is not HIIT? I like riding my spin bike and rarely do intervals. I just added a step tracker, should I delete that if steps don't count?

Should I even be logging exercise for calorie tracking purposes. Lately, I don't. I eat at .5 or 1 pound weight loss (Depends on how the day goes. and leave my exercise off MFP.

Any insight is appreciated...I am thoroughly confused.

NorthCascades

Most things people say about cardio are daft and not true. You should ignore most of it. You should also ignore the HIIT fad.

Moderate cardio mostly burns fat, intense cardio mostly burns glycogen. For weight loss purposes most of what matters it that they both burn calories, but burning glycogen leaves people feeling more hungry than burning fat alone.

MissusMoon

NorthCascades wrote: »

Most things people say about cardio are daft and not true. You should ignore most of it. You should also ignore the HIIT fad.

Moderate cardio mostly burns fat, intense cardio mostly burns glycogen. For weight loss purposes most of what matters it that they both burn calories, but burning glycogen leaves people feeling more hungry than burning fat alone.

Short and to the point.
THIS!

sijomial

That list is a really useful list of things to throw your head back and laugh at.

Now bearing in mind that you are burning fat while you sleep it throws out quite a few of those myths.

I did nine hours of fairly slow and steady cardio at the weekend (14mph cycling), don't suppose that would have burned any calories.....
#notserious.

asjt678

Thanks, guys. I am pushing 40 the thought of doing a bunch of crazy stuff to lose weight was leaving me horrified...

tross0924

Weight loss is complicated, and it's not at the same time.

There's arguments for and against all the things you asked about.

HIIT burns more fat -
Why it can be said to be true - HIIT Usually results in a high total calorie burn then Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) Cardio. When the calories are burned some of them are from your fat and some of them are from your body's stores of sugar. When you eat you replace theses sugar stores that were burnt, thereby reducing the number of calories available for everything else causing a fat burn all throughout the day.

Fat burning Zone -
Why it can be said to be true -When you work out at this range a greater portion of the calories burned come directly from your fat stores as compared to the other heart rate zones. There's less sugar storage burned in comparison and overall usually a low total calorie burn as well.

Slow and steady won't melt fat -
Why it can be said it's true - It can't. All activity will burn fat. If you want to say it won't "melt" fat (as in result in a rapid reduction of body fat) . . . fine. LISS is the tortoise not the hare, but if you don't stop, you'll get there faster than those that burn themselves out.

AM Cardio -
Why it can be said to be true - Similar to the fat burning zones, when you wake up in the morning your body has the lowest sugar stores that it's going to have for the day. If you exercise during this time a greater percentage of your energy used for the exercise comes from your fat stores.

Counting steps is useless -
Why it can be said to be true - If you're counting the 3 times during the day you got up from the recliner and went to the bathroom it's useless. The calories burned during normal everyday life are part of your calories figured into your daily calorie burn. Walking in addition to this should be counted, but walking from the living room to the kitchen probably isn't an additional calorie burn.

The bottom line is that there are 10,000 ways to diet and exercise. Find the one that works for you and do that. If you like to do LISS on your bike, do that. The best exercise program is one that you will do regularly, be it HIIT, LISS, hiking, biking, walking, racquetball, swimming, jogging, or triathlons.

sijomial

"Eat less, move more" doesn't sell any DVDs - got to make it sound far more complicated than that......

CincyNeid

You cannot target zones that you want to lose fat in. Your body will pick and chose where you lose body fat from. You can only chose what muscle groups you want to tone.

The point behind HIIT is it is a High Intensity Interval Training is to get your heart rate to flux up and down to get your body to adjust it's metabolism so you burn Fat and Glycogen as NC mentioned above. The biggest issue is most people do not know what their [5] Heart levels are, what their threshold levels are, and what their lactate levels are to correct use a Interval Style of training.

Should I even be logging exercise for calorie tracking purposes. Lately, I don't. I eat at .5 or 1 pound weight loss (Depends on how the day goes. and leave my exercise off MFP...... Is any of this valid? If so, should I be logging steps or cardio that is not HIIT? I like riding my spin bike and rarely do intervals. I just added a step tracker, should I delete that if steps don't count?

I personally track EVERY cardio workout, Cycling, Running, Treadmill, Elliptical, Stair Stepper... everything cardio i track. IMHO Negative Calories are warranted evil so you can eat some of them back. If your well under you Caloric Intake levels your body can go into starvation mode which harvest everything you eat because it thinks it's not getting enough. There are fluctuating opinions on this, but in my journey I have to eat back a portion of my Negative Calories. Steps are a personal thing. I like tracking my Steps and joining with other users to compete for the most steps. Helps keep you active while you're not "active". I also log my strength training so i can see my progress of where I started and where I'm at currently. Helps me to keep my motivation high.

daweasel

Your body requires energy for cardio, at lower intensities a greater percentage of this comes from fat and at higher intensities a greater percentage comes from glycogen (sugar stored in your muscles). BUT calories in calories out is really the decider on whether you lose, maintain, or gain weight. So you might burn 300 calories walking for an hour, with a greater percentage of those from fat than the 500 you might burn jogging for an hour, but you've burnt 200 more calories jogging and that's what counts - it's all about the energy balance.

My understanding is that the process for your body to utilise fat for energy is slower than for it to utilise glycogen, so the more energy your body needs, the more it has to rely on glycogen over fat stores, which is why higher intensity exercise uses more glycogen and less fat.

For athletes this has implications: your body can only store enough glycogen to work at a higher intensity for 90-120 minutes or so, once these stores are exhausted, there's nothing left, your blood sugar drops, your body can't work as hard. You are forced to slow down and you feel awful, you physically cannot continue to work at a high intensity. This is why you see cyclists on long rides or marathon runners eating gels or bananas or similar, they're a source of quick carbohydrates (processed quickly by the body) to fuel the body so they can continue to work hard.

BUT AGAIN the bottom line is, if you use more energy than you take in you will be forced to burn fat, so ideally, work at the highest intensity that you can sustain for the time you can/want to work out. Largely though it's about finding what works for you. You might be more hungry if you're working out harder, so you might find your fitness is increasing but you're more inclined to eat more as well.

On a side note, HIIT has been shown to be effective at burning more fat in the period after exercise than steady state cardio due to post exercise oxygen consumption, but it's not something you want to jump straight into, you're better off building up some base fitness first, and it can leave you very tired because you're doing maximal efforts. Also, sure it might burn more doing 10 minutes of HIIT vs 10 minutes of steady state cardio, but you certainly can't do an hour of HIIT, but you could do an hour of steady state cardio and I'd say you'd burn more doing the latter.

BrianSharpe

The above pretty much cover it........the "fat burning zone" is of no consequence except to endurance athletes.

All activity burns both fat and glycogen for fuel (and if you caloric deficit is low enough for a long period of time your body will also use some lean muscle mass - but this is grossly overhyped by the broscience crowd). Typically one has enough glycogen stored for about 90 minutes of moderate cardio which is adequate for most people but if you're running a marathon or an ultra or a longer triathlon it's desirable to train your body to bur a higher proportion of fat as even the skinniest marathoner has fat reserves that can be drawn on and 1 lb of fat is about 3,500 cal which is a lot of fuel.

vespiquenn

mjneidlinger wrote: »

You cannot target zones that you want to lose fat in. Your body will pick and chose where you lose body fat from. You can only chose what muscle groups you want to tone.

The point behind HIIT is it is a High Intensity Interval Training is to get your heart rate to flux up and down to get your body to adjust it's metabolism so you burn Fat and Glycogen as NC mentioned above. The biggest issue is most people do not know what their [5] Heart levels are, what their threshold levels are, and what their lactate levels are to correct use a Interval Style of training.

Should I even be logging exercise for calorie tracking purposes. Lately, I don't. I eat at .5 or 1 pound weight loss (Depends on how the day goes. and leave my exercise off MFP...... Is any of this valid? If so, should I be logging steps or cardio that is not HIIT? I like riding my spin bike and rarely do intervals. I just added a step tracker, should I delete that if steps don't count?

I personally track EVERY cardio workout, Cycling, Running, Treadmill, Elliptical, Stair Stepper... everything cardio i track. IMHO Negative Calories are warranted evil so you can eat some of them back. If your well under you Caloric Intake levels your body can go into starvation mode which harvest everything you eat because it thinks it's not getting enough. There are fluctuating opinions on this, but in my journey I have to eat back a portion of my Negative Calories. Steps are a personal thing. I like tracking my Steps and joining with other users to compete for the most steps. Helps keep you active while you're not "active". I also log my strength training so i can see my progress of where I started and where I'm at currently. Helps me to keep my motivation high.

Starvation mode does not exist in the context you are speaking of.

In regards to eating exercise calories, MFP is designed on the NEAT model, which you should be eating back 50-75% of your exercise calories. By not doing so, assuming logging is accurate using a food scale, there can be health consequences in the long run.

Djproulx

OP, lots of great responses here. I agree with those who advise against paying much attention to the "Fat Burning Zone" issue.

As mentioned by several others, its much more relevant to endurance athletes. The reason is the length of their workouts( or races) cause the body to need more fuel than we can stockpile via carbs and store as glycogen (roughly 2000 cal). Therefore, the energy needed to propel the body through a multi hour event has to come from other sources, either from stored fat, or through consumption of additional carbs to convert to glycogen.(gels, sports drinks, etc.)

If you decide to pursue training for endurance events, there will be plenty of opportunities for a deep dive into the fat burning discussion.

Josh_lol

If you're exercising no matter how intense, you're using energy. When your body needs to restore the glycogen you used to do that exercise, it'll use stored fat in your body and food you recently ate to do so.

Timshel_

asjt678 wrote: »

We need to get your heart up in order to burn the fat

For Fat Burning, read this:
Fat Facts

For Steady State Cardio vs. HIIT, Read this:
Steady-State Cardio Vs. High-Intensity Interval Training

Now how you log things is up to you. If you base your caloric intake on TDEE (Total daily energy expenditure) and you put yourself as active in any way, this will already include your workout calories so you don't log them. If you you do TDEE based on sedentary, you can log exercise, but I only recommend activities that have more than 15 minutes in duration, or are cumulative over time( so total steps in a day is okay, but not really a great indicator of activity imho).

I see people logging doing dishes, yard work, etc., and again that is okay if you exert yourself a lot more than you normally would, but that would be better logged based on BMR than a TDEE scenario.

CincyNeid

vespiquenn wrote: »

Starvation mode does not exist in the context you are speaking of.

In regards to eating exercise calories, MFP is designed on the NEAT model, which you should be eating back 50-75% of your exercise calories. By not doing so, assuming logging is accurate using a food scale, there can be health consequences in the long run.

From my text

If your well under you Caloric Intake levels your body can go into starvation mode which harvest everything you eat because it thinks it's not getting enough. There are fluctuating opinions on this, but in my journey I have to eat back a portion of my Negative Calories.

If you look at the wording, If you're well under your Caloric intake levels your body can do into starvation mode. This not a first time offense to get it to go into Starvation Mode. If it happens over and over and over again. Starvation mode is a real thing Just one of many sources. But it has to be on a repeat offense over a long period of time. It's not a one and done deal. You and I will agree on that. You and I will also agree on that you need to eat back a portion of your calories.

Timshel_

Starvation mode does not exist in the context you are speaking of.

This is a good read on it too.

Starvation Mode: Is It A Myth? Is It Real? Is Your Body In It Right Now?

vespiquenn

Timshel_ wrote: »

Starvation mode does not exist in the context you are speaking of.

This is a good read on it too.

Starvation Mode: Is It A Myth? Is It Real? Is Your Body In It Right Now?

Thank you for digging this up because I was about to. As I said, the starvation mode you are speaking of does not exist. Yes, there is such a thing as homeostasis, which does slow the metabolism down after restricting and losing body weight, but it's often insignificant. Only a few 100 calories if that. It's the reason MFP drops your calorie allotment every 10lbs. Your metabolism does not become damaged. It does not hang onto food due to repeat offenses as you claim I will agree to. Simply put, if you are in a deficit, your body will lose weight, not hang onto it because your brain things it should. The human body does not work that way.

However, I'm not going to continue with this beyond this response due to it derailing the OPs original question.

TR0berts

Pro-tip: if it's on authoritynutrition.com, it's almost certainly incorrect.

RavenLibra

HIIT, is like weight lifting for your respiratory and cardio systems... I would not recommend it for anyone just starting out on their fitness journey... HIIT training Is something to try once you have been engaged in steady state for a while and are looking for something to take you to that fabled "Next level"... it really isn't a fad... the name may have changed... back in the day my running coach simply called it "Interval training" (going back 30+ years). it took me from running a 7 minute mile to a sub 5 minute mile in 2 months... had I not been so young and naïve I would have sworn he was out to kill each and every member of the running team... BUT the results spoke for themselves... the point here is... HIGH Intensity Interval Training... is not something ANYONE should try until they are looking to up their game... and have their doctor's approval...