Fat Burning Exercises

Aerobic Exercises

Are you wondering what the best aerobic fat burning exercises are? Believe me you are not alone. The answer is that there is no one perfect aerobic exercise that is best.  

hey are all an effective exercise to burn fat.

Any exercise that gets your heart pumping within your target heart rate zone is considered an aerobic exercise.

So, it doesn't matter if you select walking, jogging, or use an elliptical machine, just make sure your aerboic exercise is within your target heart rate to get the most from your fat burning exercises.

Your asking yourself right about now, if any aerboic exercise is the best fat burning exercises, then why do so many people ask the question?  

The real question is not which aerobic exercise is best for burning fat but rather how long and how intense should the aerobic fat burning exercises be in order to burn fat effectively.
  

Low to Moderate Intensity Workouts

seniors exercisingSome will state that longer, less intense workouts are best.  The reason for this belief is that during a low to moderate aerobic exercise, your body uses a higher percentage of fat, about 60%, for fuel.  

Whereas during a high intense workout your body uses only about 35% - 45% of fat for fuel, depending on how high the intensity is.  

The reason for this is that during a high intense aerobic exercise, your body switches to using more carbohydrates for fuel and less fat.  

But before you pick a low aerobic workout for your maximum fat burn, keep reading.

High Intensity Aerobic Exercise

The fact is that while a low to moderate aerobic exercise routines use a higher percentage of fat for fuel, it is also burning fewer calories overall.

For example, a woman weighing 145 pounds walking at 3 mph for 30 minutes will burn approximately 130 calories.  

If 60% of this was from fat, then she would have only burned 79 fat calories during her aerobic exercise routine.

Let's assume this same woman ran for 30 minutes at 6 mph.

This is a high intense aerobic exercise for many of us. This increase in intensity also increases the calories burned.

In this example her calories burned during exercise would be approximately 348 calories.

If 35% of that was from fat, her total fat calories burned would be about 122 fat calories.

As you can see, the higher intense aerobics routine would burn more calories and fat.

woman runningSo now the answer is, for the best fat burning exercises, the higher intense workouts are best, right?

Yes mathematically this is true, however this is not necessarily what is best for everyone.  

Unfortunately, many people cannot keep this high intensity level for this length of time. 

Selecting Your Intensity Level

Remember, you have to be able to keep up that high intensity level for the full duration of your workout to get this benefit. 

And for many of us, especially if you are just starting out, it is not possible to keep this up for that long without going over your target heart rate. 

treadmillSo the answer to the question of “How long and how intense should my aerobic exercise be to burn fat” is; it depends. 

This answer will really depend on at what level you can safely exercise at and for how long. 

If you are just starting out, your best bet is to do a low to moderate workout and keep adding more time to your cardio workout. 

As you move forward, try increasing the intensity even if it's for a small amount of time during your total workout.

To wrap this question up, any aerobic fat burning exercises you choose will be effective.  What you need to determine is what length and intensity you want to perform your chosen aerobic exercise at in order to get the most benefit towards burning fat.

Let's move on to what is the best strength training fat burning exercises.




Additional Articles

Metabolism Boosters
Exercise can boost your metabolism but did you know there are other things you can do to help rev up your calorie burn?

Calories Burned During Exercise
Learn more about how calories burned during exercise are calculated to get the most from your workouts.

Circuit Training Workout Routines
Get the most from your workouts by combining aerobics and strength training with these circuit training workout examples.