ideal heart rate - does it matter that much?

Perhaps this is something that's supposed to be intuitive, and I'm missing it?? :blushing: I can't seem to wrap my head around why I need to be so hung up on whether I'm burning 50% or 85% of my calories from fat. Any info to shed light on this would be appreciated

When I run my HR is always 168-180 for 60-70 mins. I haven't had problems burning fat with that.

When I run my HR is always 168-180 for 60-70 mins. I haven't had problems burning fat with that.

Right, and that's what I was getting at in my above posts.

The only real reasons that I can think of off the top of my head for most to work out in the fat-burning zone is that they either aren't fit enough to work at a higher rate, or they are endurance athletes training for that purpose.

For pure weight loss, just focus on burning Cals when doing your cardio.

Before I was using my HRM MFP was calculating my burn at 100 cals per minute when it was truly only 70.

Thanks for all the info! Was dreading the thought of having to go slow on the machine. I've always hated the fact that when I check my heart rate I am in the red zone as if I am doing something wrong-I always knew I was in the anaerobic zone but now that I have a better understanding of it bring on the RED! My weight loss thus far has been steady so I guess I shouldn't have second guessed myself although I left heavy as well so was wondering if the lifting was the reason for my weight loss. Again thanks for the great info!

I am not sure if I missed some detail, but you don't really know if you are in the "red zone" unless you know your actual maximum heart rate, or you can correlate your exercise heart rate with feelings of perceived exertion. A lot of people have an actual max HR that is 20-30 beats/min higher than any age-prediction formula will estimate. If you are going off of a standard heart rate chart, then you may not be in the "red zone" at all.

That's my biggest issue with both heart rate training and the idea of complicated "zones". Since most people do not know their HRmax (or even that HR max can vary widely between individuals), the "zone" information can be more confusing than informative.

Throw in the phenomenon of "cardiovascular drift" (that's when, during a longer cardio workout, heart rate begins to "drift" upward with no change in workload and no change in oxygen uptake), and to me the idea of 5 training "zones" is not very useful. For most people "easy", "medium", and "hard" are all you need.

Thanks for all the info! Was dreading the thought of having to go slow on the machine. I've always hated the fact that when I check my heart rate I am in the red zone as if I am doing something wrong-I always knew I was in the anaerobic zone but now that I have a better understanding of it bring on the RED! My weight loss thus far has been steady so I guess I shouldn't have second guessed myself although I left heavy as well so was wondering if the lifting was the reason for my weight loss. Again thanks for the great info!

I am not sure if I missed some detail, but you don't really know if you are in the "red zone" unless you know your actual maximum heart rate, or you can correlate your exercise heart rate with feelings of perceived exertion. A lot of people have an actual max HR that is 20-30 beats/min higher than any age-prediction formula will estimate. If you are going off of a standard heart rate chart, then you may not be in the "red zone" at all.

That's my biggest issue with both heart rate training and the idea of complicated "zones". Since most people do not know their HRmax (or even that HR max can vary widely between individuals), the "zone" information can be more confusing than informative.

Throw in the phenomenon of "cardiovascular drift" (that's when, during a longer cardio workout, heart rate begins to "drift" upward with no change in workload and no change in oxygen uptake), and to me the idea of 5 training "zones" is not very useful. For most people "easy", "medium", and "hard" are all you need.

I like to go HARD!

Its all about what your trying to achieve. I do half and half when I work out. For the first half of my work out i bust my *kitten* and keep my heart rate in the 80-100% range. I burn a lot of calories doing this over 700 in 35 minutes. You do not burn many calories from fat when in the higher ranges, your main fuel is glycogen. In this zone your body learns how to deal with high levels of lactic acid as well, and improves your endurance. For the second half I keep my heart rate in the 50-70%. In this range 85% of the calories you burn are from fat. I do not burn nearly as much doing this but still manage to burn around 400 calories. You will have to work longer to burn more calories but they are mostly fat so if weight loss is your goal this is key. in the 70-80% you still burn calories from fat but not nearly as many.

Heart Rate Training is the best way to achieve your goal whether is is weight loss or peak physical condition.

All of this is what i have learned from reading about it on google so sorry if i do not have the tiny details correct.

Let me make this easy for everyone: You burn more fat at REST than any exercise you can do in an hour. Your RMR is the rate your body uses calories at rest. Those calories are from fat and most people are well over 1000 calories a day for RMR. So what's your best bet? RAISE YOUR RMR. That's NOT going to happen through steady state cardio. The body has to be INTENSELY trained and that will usually be ANAEROBIC exercise. Heavy weight lifting, HIIT, Tabata Protocol, etc. are INTENSE training and all raise RMR.

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