One of the FAQ's I get as a health/fitness specialist is, "Which is a better program to do on the treadmill/elliptical? Fat burn or cardio?" Oh, how that "fat burn" setting is so deceiving.
If you've ever tried the "fat burn" program on a machine, you know that it was at a fairly light intensity. I'm guessing your heart rate and breathing never got to a point where you felt challenged. Shape magazine's December issue addressed this topic and summed it up very nicely.
"As long as you're moving, you're burning calories...But the harder you work, the higher that number will be....Preset cardio programs on most stationary bikes, treadmills and ellipticals shed calories by working with intervals--sandwiching challenging periods of training between easier ones. Fat-burn sessions, on the other hand, typically keep you going at a consistent pace and exertion level, but for a longer period of time....To get the biggest bang for your buck, choose the program that gets your heart rate up and keeps it there." Shape, December 2011, pg. 18.
So why do they label it "fat burn" if that isn't true? The confusion comes in because people have heard that when you are working at a lower aerobic intensity, most of the calories you burn are coming from fat. That is absolutely true. Almost 50% of the calories shed during lower intensity cardio exercise are from fat, which is a high ratio. However, you aren't burning very many total calories. Think of it like this: On the "fat-burn" setting you may burn 50 calories, 50% of which are fat, so you've burned 25 fat calories and 25 calories from sugar sources in your body. On the "cardio" setting, for the same amount of time, you may burn 100 calories, and say only 30% of them were from fat...that's still 30 fat calories PLUS 70 additional calories. Easy math.
If I could personally re-label all the machines in the gym to say "beginner mode" instead of "fat-burn," I would.
No comments:
Post a Comment