[Beelzebub]

ok, from what i understand, you subtract your age from 220 which gives you your maximum heartrate. supposedly, 65-70% is optimal for fatburning correct? that puts me at 136.5 heartrate being optimal. the problem is that's too ****ing easy. i did 40 minutes of the eliptical today keeping a heartrate of 140-145 the whole time and it felt like i didn't do a goddamn thing. i hardly sweated, didn't even begin to breathe heavy. hell, after leg's and bi's, i jumped on the eliptical with a heartrate of 170. wtf? basically, my question is will doing cardio at a higher heartrate, say 80-85% still be effective for fat burning without my body going catabolic or burning muscle?

[BryanM]

Nope you will start burning muscle.

The thing is pure fat burning doesnt even begin until the 20min mark at 65%. so bump it up to 45 or even better 60mins. You will notice fat come off each week around 2 pounds.

If your loosing a lot more weight then take it down a notch because the body can only loose that much fat each week without turning on muscle for energy.

I do cardio around 4 times ew min. when trying to loose fat.

[BryanM]

another thing is do NOT trust the hrt rate meters on the machines they suck. After you hold onto them for a while they start to stop working. If you do not want to buy a hrt monitor then periodically take your hands of for 30 secs and reapply to get an accurate hrt rate.

[Beelzebub]

hmm, cool deal, thanks for the response. time to bump it up to 60 minutes.

[glenihan]

does anyone know where to buy a cheap yet reliable heart monitor?

[BrKonman]

I got one on sale at SportsMart, was only $50 for a Polar A5. Great reviews btw. Just watch for sales there and at electronic stores like Outpost.com (Fry's Electronics.)

[Chunky]

Originally Posted by BryanM

Nope you will start burning muscle.

The thing is pure fat burning doesnt even begin until the 20min mark at 65%. so bump it up to 45 or even better 60mins. You will notice fat come off each week around 2 pounds.

If your loosing a lot more weight then take it down a notch because the body can only loose that much fat each week without turning on muscle for energy.

I do cardio around 4 times ew min. when trying to loose fat.

It depend if muscle glycogen is depleted or not. Example, after weight training or when you wake up the morning, it is depleted. Doing low intensity cardio will then help burn fat more efficiently. The low intensity reason is too limit cortisol level so you're not becoming too catabolic.

[Lean One]

Originally Posted by Chunky

It depend if muscle glycogen is depleted or not. Example, after weight training or when you wake up the morning, it is depleted. Doing low intensity cardio will then help burn fat more efficiently. The low intensity reason is too limit cortisol level so you're not becoming too catabolic.

Wrong. In the morning after fasting at night liver glycogen is depleted. Muscle stores can be full to the brim.The thing is that muscle glycogen is locked in the muscle and can't be freed up to bring blood glucose levels back up after a night time fast. That's why you need to eat. Also it takes a lot more than one workout to fully deplete muscle glycogen stores.

Also, the reason for low intensity is because fat is burned most efficiently at that intensity because there is plenty of O2 available for FFA oxidation. When intensity goes up too high, the muscles ability to utilise O2 decreases witch forces the body to turn to anaerobic glycolisis and other non aerobic pathways to fuel the muscle. Add to that the fact that the resulting lactic acid produced by this inhibits FFA oxidation. You end up burning muscle and depleting glycogen stores to do your cardio.

Beazlbub, I know it feels like you're hardly doing anything because of the low intensity, but that is because you are utilising fat stores and not turning to glycogen to fuel your muscles. I would encourage you to try and keep it to around 65% to 70% intensity for 45 min to 1 hr. What will happen over time is that because you are primarily using aerobic energy pathways, your muscles will respond by increasing mitochondrial density resulting in an icreased capacity to burn fat not only During the workout but 24/7.Your body will become more and more eficient at burninfg fat AND excess calories witch will give you the luxury of getting away with a more laxed diet (to a point) without any negative consequenses.

[Beelzebub]

sounds good brudda. i'll be starting 45 minutes tommorrow at 65% and bumping it up to an hour when the next cycle starts, @ 2 weeks. thanks all for the input.

[Beelzebub]

goddamn, an hour seems like forever doing that ****. can't even do the eliptical anymore, i have to go so slow to keep my heartrate in the 140's that the machine thinks that i've quit. had to walk on the damn treadmill for an hour with an incline of 3.