The Fat Burning Zone… Myth!

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Sally: ‘Hey Joe, I want to burn fat, what should I do?’

Joe: ‘Easy! Hit the cardio and make sure you are keeping your heart rate in your fat burning zone, that’s how your body will literally burn fat to fuel your workout!’

Bean Team: ‘ Er Joe, sorry to interrupt pal, but that’s not strictly true buddy!’

If we want to burn fat optimally, we need to know a couple of things!

1. Yes in theory at a lower intensity we are utilising a greater percentage of energy from fat, but it’s not the only way (or indeed the most efficient way), to drop those extra pounds of fat! Who wants to be spending hours hitting the cardio, its dull and likely to make you lose motivation very quickly!

What if we actually could burn the same, if not more calories, in half the time! That’s why HIIT is soooo good. Its quick, its convenient – you can do it anywhere with little to no equipment, and the time goes really fast!

So, at the end of the day if your goal is to burn fat, burning more calories overall is more efficient than working out at a lower intensity to stay in a so-called ‘fat-burning zone’.

2. Secondly, if we want to burn fat, we need to focus on the number of calories we eat! The calories we eat make up the stored energy that we use to train, live and move. If we ensure that we are burning more calories each day than we consume, we will create a calorie deficit and therefore our body will burn our fat reserves as energy – resulting in fat loss!

So, thanks for the boring ‘Fat Burning Zone’ advice Joe, but I think we’ll stick to BEAN Lite HIIT workouts & bespoke calorie deficit nutrition plan!

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