Reggie Reyes discussed the “fat burning zone” concept on ParentDish.com.
A father of a 15-year-old girl asked me to meet his daughter so I could discuss her weight-loss training program and make any necessary adjustments.
I’m always interested in weight control and fitness for young people. For them it is even more important than for older folks. Why? Because if they are heavy when they are young, the extra weight puts their health at risk for more years of their life.
And conversely, if they get a handle on it when they are young they have a much better chance of living a long and healthy life.
Her program included five to six days a week of treadmill running, stationary bike or the elliptical machine for 30 minutes a day. He believed that cardiovascular training was the best for weight loss and heard that training in the fat burning zone was the fastest way to lose weight.
The fat burning zone. That comes from the idea that low intensity exercise burns a larger proportion of fat.
Many weight loss programs promote low-intensity cardiovascular training, since at this intensity (about 50-60 per cent of your maximum exertion) a larger proportion of calories used come from fat. The lower training intensity is referred to as the Fat Burning Zone.
This is where you see people trudging along on the treadmill, week after week and month after month. And usually with little to show for it.
The proportion of calories may be higher at the slow speed, but the total amount of calories burned is often not enough to make a significant difference.
The real key to losing weight is high intensity training, and that includes resistance training — using weights.
http://www.parentdish.com/2010/04/23/fat-burn-zone-weight-loss/
