Exercise just to burn fat? The key to weight loss is: calorie consumption

If you want to lose weight, you have to exercise, but the longer you exercise, the better the fat burning effect will be? The more you exercise, the more fat you burn? Experts remind that if you want to eliminate body fat, you must first establish the correct concept of exercise and focus on "calorie consumption" rather than "burning fat"!

Muscle Mom: Aerobic exercise ≠ high intensity ≠ weight loss

In order to maintain a good figure, many office workers use their free time to learn about weight loss and go to the gym after get off work or on holidays to eliminate excess body fat and get rid of obesity through aerobic exercise! However, many people fall into the myth of the "fat burning zone", believing that as long as aerobic exercise is tailored to their age and reaches a certain heart rate range, they can burn fat and make themselves thinner.

Professional fitness coach "Muscle Mom" ​​said that aerobic exercise is the use of "large muscle groups" to engage in rhythmic exercise for more than 20 minutes. Jogging, cycling, stair climbing machines, elliptical trainers, etc. are all common aerobic exercise methods and equipment, but doing aerobic exercise will not necessarily make people lose weight significantly.

Exercise to lose weight and reduce fat! Key: Total calorie consumption

In her new book "Use Resistance to Meet a Better You", Muscle Mom emphasizes that whether the body burns body fat during exercise is not the most important thing for reducing body fat. The key is whether the "total calories consumed" is high. Consuming more calories is more beneficial for losing weight and reducing fat!

In aerobic exercise mode, the body uses more oxygen to participate in energy reactions and oxidatively metabolize sugar and fat. When long-term steady-speed aerobic exercise is performed for a period of time, the body will adapt to the intensity of the exercise, the heart rate will gradually slow down, and the calories consumed by the body are actually not as many as imagined, because long-term aerobic exercise does not mean high intensity. If you want to lose weight effectively, you must increase the intensity of the exercise to consume more calories.

Aerobic exercise combined with anaerobic resistance exercise, such as weightlifting, jumping, sprinting, etc., can increase exercise intensity and consume more calories. After anaerobic exercise, the body is deficient in oxygen and needs to repay the oxygen debt, which will activate the "exercise afterburn effect", increasing the body's basal metabolic rate and consuming more calories than usual.

The low intensity of exercise in the "fat burning zone" makes it difficult to achieve fat loss results

Muscle Mom pointed out that even though fat can be oxidized to provide energy to the body during aerobic exercise, the proportion of fat used is less than half of the total calories used, and the rest of the energy conversion is still mainly through the oxidation of sugars. In addition, the "fat burning zone" referred to by aerobic exercise belongs to the "medium-low" level of exercise intensity, which is equivalent to the level where you cannot speak continuously and need to breathe slightly during exercise. The total calorie consumption is not much. If you want to use this to achieve the goal of "reducing body fat", the effect is limited, or it can be said to be "impractical."

However, low- and moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is not useless. It is suitable for beginners and people who are not physically fit enough to do high-intensity exercises, and can be used to build basic aerobic capacity.

In addition to establishing the correct concept of exercising to burn calories, the most important key to losing fat and losing weight is still "calories". It must be combined with diet control to reduce total calorie intake. Only by taking a two-pronged approach can you effectively maintain your figure.