How Much Exercise To Burn Fat


In order to find out how much exercise to burn fat you must take it would be necessary to actually do it to find out. The problem with fat loss is that it does not relate to weight loss, and while there are charts to be found online that relate exercise to weight loss, that is not the same as fat loss.
In fact, you can burn fat without losing hardly any weight at all if you also develop muscle fiber that is water-rich and also increases your metabolic rate. It becomes next to impossible to quantify your loss in weight with loss in fat. The only way to do that would be to get a body fat caliper that measures your body mass index, a measurement of the fat in your body. You can also get body fat scales that measure the resistance to a small electric current through your body and express it in terms of %fat.
So fat loss does not mean weight loss! When you burn fat you can also build muscle tissue that is mainly water, and heavier than fat (that's why fat always floats on the top of water) and so can mask any weight loss associated with fat loss. However, the question, how much exercise to burn fat, is easily answered: it's impossible to tell!
The reason for that is that exercise will burn nothing if you eat a diet containing more calories than you expend. You must exercise sufficient to use up the energy in the food you eat, and then some more. What you are trying to do is to force your body to seek another source of carbohydrates to convert to glucose. When you exercise you need glucose to undergo a reaction known as glycolysis that converts it to pyruvate - the raw material for the Kreb's Cycle that results in energy generation.
If there is a lack of carbohydrate in your diet in relation to the amount of exercise being carried out, then your body will seek another source. First it will look to its fat reserves, which have been stored in times of plenty for use in times when food is scarce. This was essential to prehistoric man's survival in winter, though not needed so much today.
The fat is burned to form glucose that is then used for energy production. When oxygen is present (aerobic exercise = aerobic glycolysis) the glucose is oxidized to pyruvate, but when oxygen is absent (anaerobic exercise = anaerobic glycolysis) a process known as lactic acid fermentation takes place that also forms pyruvate, but is a much more inefficient use of glucose than aerobic glycolysis.
So there are two factors here: how much of a calorie deficit there is between your dietary carbohydrate content and your energy demand, and whether the exercise is aerobic (jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobics) or anaerobic (weightlifting, sprinting). For these reasons alone it is not possible to say how much exercise to burn fat you would need to take assuming you did have the equipment to measure fat loss.
What can be said is that if you take sufficient aerobic exercise to be sure of a significant difference between the calorie content in your food and the calories burned by the exercise you take (500 - 1000 calories difference), then you will lose weight. If you then undertake some anaerobic exercise with a high protein diet, you should also burn fat and develop muscle tissue. Not only that, but the extra muscle tissue will help to increase your metabolic rate, which would then help to burn off even more fat.
By 'burning' fat, you are not literally burning it, or even using it directly for energy. What actually happens is that the fatty tissue, which is a carbohydrate, undergoes chemical changes to eventually convert it to glucose in the same way as any other carbohydrate. The more varied exercise you carry out, as a mixture of high, medium and low intensity cardio and aerobics mixed with anaerobic exercise such as lifting weights, then the more likely you are to lose fat.
There is no such thing as 'The Fat Burning Zone' you hear so much about. It's a myth that has somehow grown until even sensible people believe it. You burn fat when you have no other carbohydrates left. Fat is a longer chain carbohydrate and it takes energy to break down, but it's original intention was as an emergency energy source when the cave men could no longer hunt for animals during winter. Even today, bears build up large fat stores before hibernation. That's what fat is for - to convert to glucose and then to energy.
In addition to losing fatty tissue you can also lose muscle tissue with a significantly large calorie deficit between what you need to stay alive and what you eat. That's why starving people become very skinny - their limbs are like sticks because all the fat and most of the muscle tissues have been broken down for energy. Muscle is protein, which is a combination of amino acids and carbohydrate.
There is not set amount of exercise needed to burn fat - it depends on your energy demand and the carbohydrate and protein content of your diet. Only these two dietary components can be used to generate energy. Were you a bear you would burn fat when hibernating and eating no food, yet you could be asleep the whole time. No exercise - just metabolism!
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