There’s an idea that has been traveling around for a long while now about the “Fat Burning Zone”. The concept is that if you stay in your “Fat Burning Zone” you will burn more fat and thus lose weight faster. Almost every piece of cardiovascular equipment has a graph with this zone hi-lighted which leads the public to believe that if they work at a lower intensity they will actually make more progress. Wow. What a concept! Who wouldn’t love to do less and have better results?
What is actually happening in your body when you workout? You use fat, carbohydrates, and protein as fuel sources during activity. The intensity and duration of the activity determines which sources and how much of each source, measured in percentages, are used. You burn the MOST fat at rest. Yes, read it again…the most fat, at REST. Percentage-wise, fat is the body’s main source of fuel at rest. The confusion comes from thinking that more calories are being burned if more fat is burned which is not true. On the other side of the spectrum, an Olympic sprinter is burning minuscule amounts of fat and using almost all carbohydrates as fuel during a 100 meter sprint. Have you ever seen fat on a sprinter? At first, this myth seems logical but as you can see, it has been misinterpreted.
So even though, percentage-wise, you are using more fat as fuel (as opposed to carbohydrates) when you are in the “Fat Burning Zone,” you are not burning more calories by restricting yourself to that zone. If you push yourself harder and higher above it, you will burn even more calories and lose more fat.