The Fat Burning Zone Myth

Good Day Folks!

Our topic for today is the Fat Burning Zone! Most of us have heard this before, stay in the fat burning zone to optimize your fat loss, but is it based in reality? Well, sort of...

The fat burning zone is an attractive concept. Who wouldn't want to work at a lower intensity and get better results? Unfortunately I am not here to sugar coat anything for you I am only here to make you a better person and the fat burning zone is a misrepresentation of reality. When you are working at a lower intensity the body doesn't need to work as hard to produce energy for you so it uses it's primary source: fat (stored carbohydrates - body fat, not dietary fat). This means that your body uses a higher relative % of body fat compared with muscle (protein). It is easy to see how the myth arises, a higher % of fat must be a good thing, but are we really getting the most out of our workouts?

Intense workouts, those at 80% of maximal heart rate or above, demand more of the body than less intense ones and often times our body can't burn off body fat fast enough to keep up so it resorts to using the protein in your body to provide you with energy. In our more intense workouts we are burning our carbohydrate stores at the quickest rate our bodies can handle and are therefore losing as much body fat as quickly as possible. The % of carbohydrate calories burned might be lower but the total number of calories will be much higher, resulting in more weight lost. Moral of the story? The harder you work the faster you'll reach your goals.