calories burned vs. fat burned vs. fitness with HRM

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sgeorgia
sgeorgia Posts: 66 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everyone,
I recently bought the Polar F7 HRM and love it.
my questions is about the fat burn/fitness vs. calories.

Today I took a zumba class and my monitor said i burned almost 800 calories. But when i look at the fat burn portion is says .25 seconds and fitness is over an hour.

what is the difference and why in an hour of keeping my heart rate fairly high would I not burn more fat??
I'm confused and thought some of you might have the answers :-)

thanks

Replies

  • Amarillo_NDN
    Amarillo_NDN Posts: 1,018 Member
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    remember it takes 3500 cals burn for 1 lb of fat.
  • bellanean
    bellanean Posts: 220
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    If I understand what your saying, its because once your heart rate gets to a certain rate or % you are no longer in the burning fat range.
  • ProTFitness
    ProTFitness Posts: 1,379 Member
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    Dont worry what your in just keep the Heart rate up and you will burn more calories. They say if your in a certin zone you burn more fat. But burning a calorie is burning a calorie :-) 3500 calories = 1lb of fat. So aim for 500 calories a day at the least 7 days a week or a few more other days to meet your weekly goal
  • fit2sit
    fit2sit Posts: 82 Member
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    Paraphrased from Achten and Jeukendrup (2004)... from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885974/ from this thread...http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/121565-exercise-does-not-increase-24-hr-fat-oxidation

    "It is well-established that whole body fat oxidation increases with exercise intensity up to ~55-65% of VO2max, but decreases at higher exercise intensity. Why fat oxidation decreases at high exercise intensities is not completely understood, but evidence suggests a decrease in FFA (free fatty acids) availability due to a decrease in blood flow to adipose tissue, a limited capacity per unit time to generate ATP (adenosine tri-phosphate) from oxidation of plasma FFA, or a decrease in the activity of CPT1(Carnitine palmitoyltransferase I)"

    Another one of those, we know, but we really don't know sort of physiology things. So, once you go over your "fat burning zone" HR, the blood flow to your adipose tissue (fat) drops and goes elsewhere (possibly to the cardiopulminary system)? someone help me out here :-)
  • sgeorgia
    sgeorgia Posts: 66 Member
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    hi all - ok so i understand the why and how of calorie burning - but it seems to me that if my heart rate is high for an hour it should have shown burning fat for much longer than 25 seconds.

    I had actually walked for 40 minutes last week (power walk) and it showed fat burn for 15 minutes, fitness for the rest and calories were around 350.

    just trying to figure out why there is even a tracker or fat burning and fitness and what the difference is compared to calories....calories is easy math but this doesn't make any sense.

    it won't affect my workouts just wanted to know :-)

    thanks
  • willimh
    willimh Posts: 227 Member
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    From my experience, the high your heart rate is the less you burn. This is what they mean when they say less is more. You are still burning calories but, you go from burning fat to cardiovacular. It is important to stay within your zone so that you do burn fat. When you go back to the gym find out what fat burning zone is. I think it is about 1/2 to 60% of what your body weight it. You may want to get on a treadmill at the gym to check. All you do is watch for the lights on there that show the zone you're in and stay in the fat burning zone. In your zumba class you may have to do low impact so that you don't get out of your fat burning zone.

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