Target Heart Rate?

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grangerkelly
grangerkelly Posts: 23
in Fitness and Exercise
Okay, this may seem like a stupid question. I've googled this, and I'm not entirely sure what my target heart rate for "max fat burning" should be. 60-70% of my max? I've tried the 220 - 27 (my age) formula, and that puts me at 116-135 for fat burning. This seems kind of low...is that just me? Am I miscalculating?!

Replies

  • bearwith
    bearwith Posts: 525 Member
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    If you actually look like your photo, why are you worried about losing weight? Just eat healthy and keep an eye on your BMI - much more important for somebody your size.

    Good luck
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
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    Very simply put (if you Google you'll find many helpful and detailed articles), the rate for the fat burning zone is effective only if you are working out for an extended period of time. At a certain point, your body switches over to using fat for energy. As a practical matter, most people want to be in the cardio zone.
  • grangerkelly
    grangerkelly Posts: 23
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    If you actually look like your photo, why are you worried about losing weight? Just eat healthy and keep an eye on your BMI - much more important for somebody your size.

    Good luck

    I'm not trying to lose weight. I've lost 40. I am trying to lose fat and gain muscle. Eating healthy and tracking my habits is why I'm here :)
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    I'm not trying to lose weight. I've lost 40. I am trying to lose fat and gain muscle. Eating healthy and tracking my habits is why I'm here :)
    If you're trying to lose fat and gain muscle, you'd be better off minimizing the cardio and doing a strength training program if you're not already.

    In regards to the original question, substrate utilization during exercise is largely irrelevant. Although the body switches to carbohydrates as a primary energy source at higher levels of aerobic intensity, there's also a larger calorie burn, therefore more calories burned from fat because fat is still utilized to some extent. If you burn 100 calories in 30 minutes at a very low intensity and 80% of them are from fat (hypothetically speaking), you'd burn 80 fat calories (along with 20 additional calories from carbs). If you worked at a higher intensity and burned 300 calories during that same 30 minutes and 30% of the calories burned were from fat, you burned 90 fat calories (along with 210 additional calories from carbs). So in reality, you burned 10 more fat calories and 190 additional calories by working at the higher intensity level.
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
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    this is not something even remotely worth worry about.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
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    You burn the most fat when you burn the most calories, which happens at higher intensity exercise. The target HR for fat burning stuff is just a confusing manipulation of the math- total gimmick. Target HRs are very useful for HR-based interval training- but not at all for that fat burning stuff. Don't worry about it.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    this is not something even remotely worth worry about.

    We've already spent too much time on it.

    Bean explained why
  • ChrisR0se
    ChrisR0se Posts: 1,855 Member
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    Sweating and outta breath

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