How to burn fat efficiently

Azdak

The fatal flaw in most of these theories is that they assume that what happens during an exercise workout is somehow a discrete event, unaffected by anything else that happens during the day.

Have to agree somewhat. Hormones, stress, and rest all will affect it.

The most powerful and efficient way to "burn fat" is to maintain a calorie deficit. The effect of that deficit stimulates changes to a far greater magnitude than all of this tinkering around.

But in a sedentary person, this would include burning of lean muscle tissue.

Two points:
I didn't elaborate because I have written about it a million times before, but the fuel substrate used for a workout has little or no effect on long-term body fat loss. So whether or not exercising in a "fasted" state leads to an RQ shift during exercise (i.e. increased "fat burning") means nothing--at the end of 24 hours TOTAL fat oxidation is the same when compared to someone who "burned less fat" during their workout. I have not seen the same level of study done for amino acids, but I suspect the same is also true for that as well. The idea that "cardio burns muscle" because, at some point during an extended cardio workout an increased percentage of energy will be derived from amino acids, seems incongruous with all other physiological systems. I have never seen the origin of this statement, but it sounds like something that is being inappropriately generalized.

Second: The point was not that diet alone is the optimal way to achieve permanent fat loss. The point was that a negative energy balance is by far the single most powerful stimulant to increased fat oxidation (the original topic of the thread). For the average person, things such as meal timing, exercise order, exercise time of day, supplements, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc are just extraneous noise and trivia keeping them from focusing on the most important thing: maintaining a consistent calorie deficit. There is no question that permanent fat loss (and health) is greatly enhanced by cardiovascular and resistance exercises.