Calories burning vs fat burning

To some degree, most Americans need to lose weight. Yes, obesity has become a national problem in the country. But in order to lose weight and get in shape, a good diet is not enough. Regular exercise is a must to burn fat.

Just because you sweat when you exercise, it does not mean that you are burning fat. You are sweating means that you are burning calories. But burning calories does not necessarily mean burning fat.

The main focus of exercise in a weight loss program should be to burn body fat, not just to burn calories. The calories burnt in exercise, especially in the first 10 minutes of the exercise, are the calories from carbohydrates and sugar in our system.

In order to burn calories from the stored fat, our body requires the presence of oxygen. A certain amount of oxygen is needed before our body can start burning fat. Without it, the calories burnt will only be from carbohydrate and sugar in our body.

If we continue to only burn calories from carbohydrates, what we will lose will be mostly "water weight". Water weight loss would not do any good or permanent effect as it will lead to a decrease in metabolism and will eventually end in a "weight-rebound".

During aerobic exercise, our body needs to go through several stages before it reaches the point where it can start burning fat. Typically, within the first 10 minutes of exercise, the calories burnt will be from sugar and carbohydrates. But take a note on this: it does not mean that our body will surely burn its stored fat after the 10-minute time frame.

If we do not work out hard enough, or if we work out too hard, our body may not be able to burn its stored fat. In both cases, the body could not burn fat due to lack oxygen needed: in the first case because our body did not reach the level of wanting more oxygen yet, and in the second case because our body could not supply enough oxygen to support such massive activities.

So, you must move at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow) in order to enable your body to burn its stored fat. And make sure that you are within your target heart rate range to stay at the fat burning stage. How to determine a target heart rate range? It will be discussed in another article.