Fitness question

Not a fitness professional, but here are some things you should work on. In regards to fat burning, there are a lot of things to take into consideration. First off, how long are you working out. Your doesn't start burning until about 20 minutes into exercising. Also, are you doing cardio only, strength, or some sort of mix? Personally, and of course this is different for everyone, but I can be doing strength workout for 45 min and my heart rate be between 89-112, and my fat burn is around 55%.

Here are some other basics to think about. Before you exercise, are you carbing up or having protein only? If you carb up, your body will always burn that first. If you have protein, then you will burn fat, because there will be no carbs. Not sure what your diet is or if you are a cardio machine, but if you can get away with it, I recommend reducing carbs to a minimum and focusing on protein before and after exercising. Nothing excessive, since you aren't bulking up. This worked wonders for me and my wife when we had tried out some different exercise plans. I had used Men's Health TNT diet. But it can be modified for women easily and there are plenty of others like it. Good luck!

I also am not an expert, however, based on what I read, in order to be burning fat, you should be between 65-85% of your heart rate. At least that is what they say when I google the topic. As long as you are in that % you theoretically should be burning mostly fat calories. at 155 heart rate, you are at 88% of your total heart rate, and at 84%, so my answer would be just to try and keep your heart rate a little lower and it should be fat calories. Hopefully that helps, and I am interested to see what other people say

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/busting-the-great-myths-of-fat-burning.html

This link should help. This is the easiest to understand explanation I have found.

Good luck!

I recently started eating cleaner and the change has been amazing. There is a book The Eat Clean Diet or check out Michi's ladder on line. Eating cleaner along with your amazing workouts could help you see some different results.

Okay, I'm going to try to answer this and hope I don't confuse you more. There are three energy systems that you use to provide ATP (which is like the gasoline our muscle engines run on). You can make ATP from the Creatine Phosphate system for about 90 seconds. Thats the initial energy you use when you do a very short, very high intensity exercise, like a 40 yard dash. The next system is Anaerobic Gycolysis. This is for longer activities then CP, but still pretty high intensity. Think weight lifting, or activities that are considered cardio but a high heart rates. This system burns carbohydrates. You can't burn fat with either of those systems. The third system is Aerobic Glycolysis, which does burn fat. It is the system you use when you are at low intensity and long duration. This is the system that is there for jogging for an hour or other exercise that you can maintain for long time periods, like traditional aerobics, very light weightlifting with lots of reps and no rest between sets, etc. A lot of people consider these systems as exclusive. In my personal training certifications, that is how they were taught to try and make them more understandable. However, in my bachelors program for exercise physiology, I've learned that they aren't exclusive. You actually use all three systems at the same time. The Pyruvate produced in Anaerobic Glycolysis actually moves over to Aerobic Glycolysis to be used in the chemical reaction that burns fat. You can't get to Aerobic Glycolysis without Anaerobic Glycolysis, but if you don't have enough oxygen or the oxygen isn't able to be pulled from the blood stream by the muscle cells, then you can convert the Pyruvate into Lactate (aka Lactic Acid) and not go into Aerobic Glycolysis with that particular gram of carbohydrate that is being burned in Anaerobic Glycolysis. If you get enough oxygen, you might with the next one. Like I said, it's much easier to see it as exclusive systems because it is a very gray area as to exactly when you are burning what because they are all working at once.

There have actually been studies that show a percentage of fat, carbs, and even protein that are being used at various times and intensity levels. Technically, you are primarily burning fat when you are sitting still doing nothing and you start to mix carbs and fat when you are active. Some heart rate monitors estimate the number of calories burned from fat based on the estimated mix ratios at various levels. Others go by the simplified method of "if you are at this intensity it is fat and if you are at that intensity it is carbs" or what is widely known in the fitness industry as the "Fat Burning Zone" which is the lower end of a Target Heart Rate Zone. I don't know the specifics on the manufacture of that particular HRM to know which method it uses, but I'm betting it is the latter because it is easier to program into a small computer. If that is the case, then you were only in the low end of your Target Heart Rate Zone for 6 minutes. That doesn't mean that you weren't burning fat during the rest of your workout, just that the substrate that was being used more was carbs. From figuring your Target Heart Rate Range (220 minus your age, times 60% and 85%) I get a range of 104 to 148. Going above your range would mean that you are probably burning 70-80% carbs, 10% fat, and 10-20% protein. (That's just an estimate that I've been taught in class. You can't actually know for each individual without clinical testing.) Whereas, when you were at say 60% of your Max Heart Rate (220 minus your age, times 60%, or 104 bpm), you were burning more like 60% fat, 30% carbs, and 10% protein. The latter would be that 6 minutes.

Now, what does all that mean for your fat burning. Lets say that 617 calories was all high intensity and a lower percentage of fat burning. 617 x 10% = 61.7 calories from fat. If you had gone at a lower intensity and burned 617 calories (which I want to point out would take longer to achieve at a lower intensity), then 617 x 60% = 370.2 calories from fat burned. Now, I don't know how much time you have to workout, so I don't know how feasible it would be to burn 600 calories at a lower intensity for you, so that may not be an option. If you were to burn say 100 calories in the same amount of time at a lower intensity, though, you'd still burn 60 of them from fat, but then only 30 would be from carbs and 10 would be from protein, whereas at the higher intensity you are getting 432 calories from carbs and 123 from protein. Since you have all 3 substrates (carbs, protein, and fat) in your daily intake, you might just want to focus on burning as many calories as possible so that the calories you consume from those substrates are used and not converted to fat in the body. No, you may not burn as much stored body fat as you do from other substrates at high intensity, but you will keep from having more stored.

Also, just FYI, your estimated Maximum Heart Rate is 174. I wouldn't go too close to that for safety reasons, but at 165 you still have a 5% window. If you are consistently that high and don't feel winded, you might want to be clinically tested to see what your actual maximum heart rate is since this is just an estimate. If you feel like you are hitting a wall though, when your heart rate is that high, you might want to slow down a bit.

There are a few things to remember:
More Muscle = Better Basal Metabolic Rate : The more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns just lying, standing, or sleeping.
Everything will turn to fat : no matter what you eat (protein, carbs, or fat), it will turn to fat if you don't use it.

Agree with the above. I'm also a so called ‘professional’ with professional qualifications not that it means much to be honest. Anybody can gain a qualification it’s just a piece of paper.

Weight training will give you more muscle which will give you a higher BMR.

Diet is the key to fat lose not doing prolonged hours on treadmill. It’s much easier to not put food in your mouth than it is to run for 60 minutes. You’re likely to eat more after 60 mins on the treadmill too.

As above mentioned keep protein high to ensure muscular recovery can occur and keep an eye on your carb levels especially refined sugary food that are going to provide an insulin spike. This along with a calorie deficit and you can’t really go wrong. As you go along the way monitor weight and adjust diet accordingly. IF fat loss slows take a further 200 or so calories out.

Ultimately you can’t spot reduce fat on the stomach. It will slowly be lost all over the body at the same time but genetics can play a part in this. It has been suggested by science that the stomach is the most stubborn because it holds onto the fat to protect the vital organs.