Have you ever wondered what the best cardio exercises are for burning excess body fat? Is low-intensity walking better, or is high-intensity running more effective for burning body fat?
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Well, both low-intensity and high-intensity exercises will help you burn body fat. The question is, which one is more effective and burns more fat. What is your fat-burning zone?
When scientists first reported that during intense exercise, your body burns glycogen, a form of stored carbohydrates in the liver and muscles for energy, and during low-intensity exercise, your body burns fat, everyone suddenly changed their workout routine to focus on low-intensity exercises to burn body fat.
Does that work? Clearly, it doesn’t, because there are still many overweight people even though they train with low-intensity exercises, right? Why is that?
Well, scientists were correct when they said that our bodies burn more fat during low-intensity exercises like walking or slow swimming. But during high-intensity exercises like running, our bodies burn a lot of calories. Even if some of those calories come from glycogen, we still burn a significant number of calories from fat as well.
For added benefit, when your glycogen stores are low, the carbohydrates from the meal you eat later are converted into glycogen to replenish the stores, and they won’t be stored as body fat when left unused for energy.
Moreover, high-intensity cardio increases your metabolic rate even after the workout ends. This means your body will continue to burn fat for hours after you leave the gym. This effect is almost non-existent in low-intensity cardio exercises. Cumulatively, your body burns far more calories during and after high-intensity cardio compared to low-intensity cardio.
You can inject high-intensity exercises into your cardio routine by incorporating some interval training. You can walk briskly for 5 minutes, then run for another 5 minutes. Then walk briskly again until you catch your breath, and run for one minute before walking again for another minute. From this point, alternate between running and walking, one minute each, for the next 15 minutes, and you'll be done.
Do this for 5 days a week and before long, you will be steadily losing unwanted body fat and weight healthily and naturally.