Exercise VS Endurance VS fat burning

Victœria

I really struggle to do exercise, I don't know about you guys.
I just get it over with as fast as i can.
I do the hardest level for the shortest time with the highest calorie burn that i can manage.

My friend has just informed me that i should lower my level and go for endurance and this will help me burn more fat.
I have been looking around the internet and there is just that much information out there i got sick with researching thats why im asking for your advice.

I am trying so hard to lower my body fat.

If you know from personal experience or have studied this kind subject I'd love your help.

Thank You so much.

PS. new friends always welcome xx xx

iceqieen

would love to know the answers to that. Am doing the oposite, a bit longer time with lower calories but trying to make myself last longer.

Georganna1962

The water aerobics instructor explained that for fat burning you need to work out at least 50 minutes at a moderate pace. In our class they will have us do 15 seconds regular pace, 15 seconds all out, then progress to 30 seconds, 45 seconds and then a minute and this is repeated throughout the 1 hour class. That is in the water aerobics and deep water jogging and it is for fat burning. Hope this helps.

Leaker12

i read somewhere that AFTER the first 20min of exercising is when you start lossing body fat. I would think the longer you do it at a moderate pace would be better.

ingies2011

I think it sort of goes like this, for maximum fat burning you first need to burn all the glycogen stored, then you will start burning fat, i think to get to that point takes quite a while. Alternatively you can work out as hard as you can for a shorter time, probably burning the same amount of calories during the exercise as doing it slower for longer, but... you will have more of an afterburn, and continue to burn fat even while you sleep (yay).
.
I think if you like to work out at a lesser intensity for longer you would be wise to do it before breakfast, as you would have less stored glycogen at that stage.

Personally I like to work out hard, and enjoy the "high" you get from and the knowledge that my BMR will be higher for a while.

1546mel

Lower pace longer minutes. You cannot rush the fat burn, did not put it on overnight. I tend to exercise 4 times a week with 3 of those times 1 hour with 30-45 min of cardio and another 15-30 strength training. One day i exercise for 1.5 hours with 45 strength in a weightlifting class and another 30 min of cardio. Rest of time is spent talking Seems to work for me as I am 50 lbs down Now if anyone has a secret about burning fat on arms........................:)

Lyadeia

It's really about what burns the most calories overall. If you have a really intense workouts that is 20 minutes that burns more calories than a 50 minute lower intensity workout, then do the short one. If you find that the longer one burns more calories, do the longer one. The whole debate about where the fuel for the different workouts comes from is really just micromanagement, cause the truth of it us, you just gotta burn as many calories as you can.

I personally prefer to go as hard as I can for as long as I can. I also do heavy lifting 3 days a week. I've lost 2% body fat in the past 2 and half weeks as well.

Lyadeia

Now if anyone has a secret about burning fat on arms........................:)

I wish there was a secret to spot fat reduction. Sadly, we just keep plugging away with our routines and good nutrition.

4theking

You were doing it right. High intensity, short duration is best for fat loss in my opinion. Fat loss is all about the hormones and high intensity raises growth hormone, a powerful fat burner. Long duration raises cortisol which interferes with fat loss.

manjingirl

Weight loss is 80-90% energy intake (food/drink), 10-20% activity.

So thinking about your food intake will really help with reducing your weight. The exercise will help your health and is most beneficial in helping maintain weight. Nearly killing yourself with high intensity short time exercise is unlikely to help with good sustainable moderate weight loss. Better off finding some type of exercise/activity that you like so you're happy doing it. Your heart, bones, brain, joints, muscles etc will thank you for it.

starfires

Lots of opinions here but does anyone have any actual facts with references?

katbat65

All the Maths makes my head spin, but my personal trainer swears by weight training for getting rid of fat. I have a program that includes a balance of weights and cardio and this has helped me to get rid of 11kg in the last eight and a half weeks.

Azdak

This whole subject is mainly an exercise in tail chasing (which would probably be more effective for fat loss than this discussion).

Repeat after me:

The fuel substrate mixture burned during exercise has no significant effect on weight loss.

The fuel substrate mixture burned during exercise has no significant effect on weight loss.

The fuel substrate mixture burned during exercise has no significant effect on weight loss.

The fuel substrate mixture burned during exercise has no significant effect on weight loss.

The fuel substrate mixture burned during exercise has no significant effect on weight loss.

A balanced workout should include endurance cardio, what I call tempo cardio, higher-intensity interval training, and resistance training.

A consistent, balanced program of quality exercise combined with appropriate eating habits will result in improved fitness and weight loss.

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

manjingirl

Lots of opinions here but does anyone have any actual facts with references?

Very good point. I have just been for a little look in the journals for hard data. Good quality long term studies are few and far between, but the upshot seems to be that diet, or diet and exercise help weight loss (no percentages given), exercise alone seems the least successful strategy in actual peer-reviewed studies, exercise with diet helps preserve muscle tissue during weight loss as well as the other beneifts associated with exercise (there was a very large study done in America on the benefits of exercise - I'll look for that another time).

And from the little I could find on types of exercise - seems resistance for muscle maintenance, cardio for heart health etc, reasonable level of intensity if possible, 30-60 minutes (similar to Azdak, though a recent meta analysis showed that while all calories are equal, the source of calories makes a difference to your waist line over time - Mozaffarian D et al. Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men. New England Journal of Medicine, June 23, 2011;364:2392-404).

N Engl J Med. 2011 Mar 31;364(13):1218-29.
Weight loss, exercise, or both and physical function in obese older adults.
Villareal DT, Chode S, Parimi N, Sinacore DR, Hilton T, Armamento-Villareal R, Napoli N, Qualls C, Shah K.

Diet or exercise, or both, for weight reduction in women after childbirth
Amanda R Amorim Adegboye1,*,
Yvonne M Linne2,
Paulo Mauricio C Lourenco3
Editorial Group: Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group
Published Online: 8 OCT 2008
Copyright © 2008 The Cochrane Collaboration.

Church TS, Martin CK, Thompson AM, Earnest CP, Mikus CR, et al. (2009) Changes in Weight, Waist Circumference and Compensatory Responses with Different Doses of Exercise among Sedentary, Overweight Postmenopausal Women. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4515. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004515

K. Shaw, H. Gennat, Peter O'Rourke, and Chris Del Mar. (2006) "Exercise for overweight or obesity
(Review)" ,, .
http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hsm_pubs/50
The Cochrane Collaboration

SHBoss1673

What Azdak said.

i did some research into this about a year ago. While yes, your body does start to use more stored fat as energy during long periods of cardio, the same research also noted that over the long term, these effects are mitigated by a whole host of other hormonal effects thus it matters little whether you burn a lot of calories in a short period, or less calories for a longer period.

And I'll also echo manjigirl, it's all about the diet. Exercise is great, but diet is about 80% of why we gain or lose weight, and what our body fat % will be.

as to research let me check my notes from back then ....... <--- this is me looking.

http://www.ajcn.org/content/55/6/1071.full.pdf+html?sid=30476e08-53ce-48f4-90b4-65edf00831ad

http://www.ajcn.org/content/71/2/450.full?sid=db51aef8-0847-40c7-bdd8-2ef0f29c7dda

http://www.uni.edu/dolgener/Advanced_Sport_Nutrition/lont_term_fat_adaptation.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145773

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v15/n9/full/oby2007268a.html

most of these only cover the actual fat oxidation of exercise levels, but it can be noted that in every study I read, they all noted that nutrition was a major factor, and in some it is noted that low to moderate fat intake levels helped with blood fat levels and allow for increased release of stored lipids (I.E. eat a diet with moderate fat levels and you will release more body fat to burn), take from that what you will. Remember, clinical studies are often times influenced by the thoughts and practices of the research team involved, remember never to become to attached to a single study as they all are slanted towards their own conclusions. Always read a lot of studies before you attempt to draw any conclusions.

BerryH

A balanced workout should include endurance cardio, what I call tempo cardio, higher-intensity interval training, and resistance training.

^^^ This

It doesn't all have to be done on one day. I run three times a week and do one with intervals (as fast as you can for 30 seconds to a minute interspersed with a steady jog until you get your breath back), tempo (race pace - pushing yourself but able to keep it up for a medium-length workout) and a long, slow run at weekend.

You can of course substitute whatever cargo you like for running.

I also lift heavy weights twice a week and am looking to up this to three times.

And to echo SHBoss, sticking to the calories MFP recommends for a 1lb a week weight loss trumps all these in terms of weight loss.

laddyboy

Bump

jturnerx

Keep fighting the good fight, Azdak! LOL

You should write an article in your blog about this. And "muscle confusion". And "cardio burns muscle". Unless I missed it I don't think you have. BTW, I love your blog!

mlb929

I'm reading the book Racing Weight by Scott Fitzgerald. This topic is discussed in some detail.

My opinion.... both are important, one isn't really better than the other they are both good and both should be done for well rounded fitness.

liftingbro

I really struggle to do exercise, I don't know about you guys.
I just get it over with as fast as i can.
I do the hardest level for the shortest time with the highest calorie burn that i can manage.

My friend has just informed me that i should lower my level and go for endurance and this will help me burn more fat.
I have been looking around the internet and there is just that much information out there i got sick with researching thats why im asking for your advice.

I am trying so hard to lower my body fat.

If you know from personal experience or have studied this kind subject I'd love your help.

Thank You so much.

PS. new friends always welcome xx xx

You are right, high intensity exercise burns more calories per minute than low intensity or moderate intensity.

However, you should be exercising to be more fit, not to lose weight. If you want to lose weight and that's it, just eat less. As pointed out above, exerciese has a relatively small impact on weight loss.

Consider that average female might burn 500 calories with a one hour run at a decent pace. If you did that 7 days a week eating calories that maintained weight before you started running that'd only be a 1 pound loss for the week putting in 7 hours of work.

OTOH, the same woman could simply eat 500 less calories per day and get the same result and have 7 extra hours to do other things.

I'm not suggesting you shouldn't exercise, just do it to be more fit, not to lose weight. You eat to lose weight, exercise to be fit.

APDynes

In my personal experience Azdak is correct...you need a mix. When I was losing the most weight I was weight training 3 times a week, cardio 5 times a week, and interval training twice a week (called HIIT routines or high intensity interval training). And that's what I just re-started this week and I'm confident I will lose what I plan on loosing (I just need to keep it off this time).


Covert Bailey wrote a couple books on this and it's what I read before I started my initial weight loss 7 or 8 years ago. The quick and dirty version is called "The Ultimate Fit or Fat". The longer more scientific version (that actually explains the chemical reactions taking place and why things work like they do) is called "Smart Exercise".

There both "old" books and I'm sure you can find them used or at a local library.