Heart rate for burning fat?

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wdedoelder
wdedoelder Posts: 59 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I am starting to jog 5k 6 days a week on my treadmill. I have been doing this for about 3 weeks now and I have not noticed any loss in weight or inches. I noticed that articles suggest that to be in fat burn mode, a persons heart rate should be 60-75% over normal for 30-60 minutes a few times a week. That is between 106 and 134 BPM for me. When jogging, I am in the 150's and up. Has anyone tried to lose weight by staying in the lower heart rate zone to burn fat rather than carbs? As I am still trying to lose weight, I would rather burn fat than carbs. Any suggestions?
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Replies

  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    dewd2 wrote: »
    A couple things here... First, ignore the fat burning zone. It is a training zone that burns more fat as fuel so you can run longer (for distance runners). It does not mean you magically burn fat off your body. Second, how do you know your zones? Did you test your max heart rate? Do you know your resting heart rate? Using some formula like 220 minus age is just a guess (and can be way off - I am 48 and my actual max HR is 182).

    Finally, the most important point... You lose weight in the kitchen, not on the treadmill. You have to eat less than you burn. Get your diet under control and you will see results. Use the exercise for your health.

    One more point: Stop running 5k every day. You will eventually burn out/get injured/over train. If you want to run, great. Follow a good plan and build up safely.

    Good luck.
    and dont forget that most fat is burned at rest.
  • wdedoelder
    wdedoelder Posts: 59 Member
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    Good points. I am jogging a very slow 5k. I was going at 8.7 KMH (34 minutes for 5K) and have slowed it down to 8KMH which is about 37 minutes. I am just doing it to get the 5k In and not to really improve my time, so it is pretty gentle. Once girls start up with their aikido again (we have all been a bit ill), I will be going to the gym twice a week for some biking and free weights as well. It seems that I have been stuck at this weight for ages while I am still measuring everything out and making sure that I am eating a deficit in calories. *sigh*
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,388 Member
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    Heart rate zones to build cardio base and heart health, defict to burn fat off your body.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    wdedoelder wrote: »
    I am starting to jog 5k 6 days a week on my treadmill. I have been doing this for about 3 weeks now and I have not noticed any loss in weight or inches. I noticed that articles suggest that to be in fat burn mode, a persons heart rate should be 60-75% over normal for 30-60 minutes a few times a week. That is between 106 and 134 BPM for me. When jogging, I am in the 150's and up. Has anyone tried to lose weight by staying in the lower heart rate zone to burn fat rather than carbs? As I am still trying to lose weight, I would rather burn fat than carbs. Any suggestions?

    you cant pick what is being burned with exercise aside from calories.weight is lost in a caloric deficit whether you do that by eating less and moving more or just moving more to create said deficit is up to you. but you have to be in a deficit or you wont lose weight.
  • dewd2
    dewd2 Posts: 2,449 Member
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    Double check your logging. Don't skip anything. Everything that you eat should be logged accurately. After doing this if you still find you are not losing you have to adjust. You either eat less or move more. In your case I suggest not moving more. A 34 minute 5k is not exactly slow. Many folks would love to be that fast.
  • dewd2
    dewd2 Posts: 2,449 Member
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    Also, don't trust the calories burned when you workout. Assume it is not accurate and only eat about half of them back.
  • wdedoelder
    wdedoelder Posts: 59 Member
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    That is true… I used to run 6 min miles, so 34-40 is slower to me. As I said, not doing it to run faster, doing it for the exercised calorie burn so long is probably better :)
  • dewd2
    dewd2 Posts: 2,449 Member
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    One last thing (I promise :) ), you can make your body burn fat as fuel through your diet. It still doesn't mean you burn body fat. Only your fuel source changes. It is mostly pointless, IMO. But if it makes you stick to your calorie goal then go for it.

  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,677 Member
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    If you are comfortable running a bit faster, you could burn more calories in the same period of time running farther. Obviously moving your body for 6 km will burn more calories than running for 5. Increase your distance gradually, but more miles will help you more than running in the 'fat burning zone'.

    That said, running slowly can help build your endurance over time. But if you can currently run that distance easily, then running more will help more with weight loss and it will make you a stronger runner.
  • wdedoelder
    wdedoelder Posts: 59 Member
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    Have I mentioned that I dislike running? Lol. I have been using the Zombies Run app while on the treadmill. I would like to go out more to run, but it is too humid here still for me.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    I'd dislike running if I had to do it on a treadmill.

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    andysport1 wrote: »
    wdedoelder wrote: »
    That is true… I used to run 6 min miles, so 34-40 is slower to me. As I said, not doing it to run faster, doing it for the exercised calorie burn so long is probably better :)

    If you used to do 6mm you know all about exercise and nutrition, if your going to workout 6 days a week forget heart rates, just pop yourself into ketosis and then alter your carb intake to stay in ketosis, it'll affect your running for a few days but then you'll be back to normal.
    Alternatively just up your mileage, 50k a week is approx 3500 calories roughly 1lb

    How exactly does someone who can do 6 minute miles automatically know about nutrition or exercise?

    In OPs case she clearly doesn't, which is why she posted the question in the first place!
  • wdedoelder
    wdedoelder Posts: 59 Member
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    It just gets too hot here during the summers. I can't wait to for winter! I am a bit clueless when it comes to nutrition. I started my journey in 2015 and managed to lose about 40 pounds just with walking on an incline treadmill daily. I had to visit a nutritionist as I started to gain weight when I quit diet soda's. My diet and exercise were still the same other than drinking a lot of water. With the nutritionist, I have lost another 10 pounds, but that is in about 6 months time. It is truly frustrating!
  • kcjchang
    kcjchang Posts: 709 Member
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    34 minutes, that seems short to stimulate the necessary adaptations to increase mitochondria numbers and enzymatic efficiencies. I hate rumming but did them while in the Army and hour runs are more typical. For cycling, my sport, 3-5 hours is the mark.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
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    wdedoelder wrote: »
    I am starting to jog 5k 6 days a week on my treadmill. I have been doing this for about 3 weeks now and I have not noticed any loss in weight or inches. I noticed that articles suggest that to be in fat burn mode, a persons heart rate should be 60-75% over normal for 30-60 minutes a few times a week. That is between 106 and 134 BPM for me. When jogging, I am in the 150's and up. Has anyone tried to lose weight by staying in the lower heart rate zone to burn fat rather than carbs? As I am still trying to lose weight, I would rather burn fat than carbs. Any suggestions?

    To answer the original question, yes, you will burn calories by exercising at a lower heart rate. That said, weight loss is really driven by your calorie deficit. Exercise calories just provide a nice boost to those efforts.

    Most of your weekly miles should be done at an easy pace (which will inherently translate to a relatively low heart rate). You should be fully conversational and barely breathing hard. If you can't sing comfortably while running, you're not running an easy pace. I run ~25 miles a week and 20 of them are at an easy pace.

    The calorie burn for an easy run vs. a hard run of the same mileage is surprisingly close. While intensity levels will drive a small difference in burn rates, conventional wisdom says that it's really the mileage and not the intensity that drives the calorie burn.

    One commonly referenced standard is that for every mile you run, you'll burn your body weight (in lbs) X 0.63. The only qualifier to intensity is that you should be running faster than ~5mph (12 minute miles) in order to burn at this rate.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Essentially, the longer you go at a higher intensity the more calories you burn and thus you lose more fat. Heart rate zones don't tell you much about that until you have enough data to know at what heart rate you can sustain a workout for a long period of time.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
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    TimothyFish wrote: »
    Essentially, the longer you go at a higher intensity the more calories you burn and thus you lose more fat. Heart rate zones don't tell you much about that until you have enough data to know at what heart rate you can sustain a workout for a long period of time.

    Agreed, though I would also add that for calorie burn purposes, it's better to go lower intensity for longer than to go higher intensity for shorter.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    TimothyFish wrote: »
    Essentially, the longer you go at a higher intensity the more calories you burn and thus you lose more fat. Heart rate zones don't tell you much about that until you have enough data to know at what heart rate you can sustain a workout for a long period of time.

    Agreed, though I would also add that for calorie burn purposes, it's better to go lower intensity for longer than to go higher intensity for shorter.

    For max calorie burn, It's best go at medium high, if you have the fitness for it. You can sustain a high cal/min rate for an extended period of time and get best of both worlds.

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