I read and hear quite often that the "fat burning" cardio range for my age / heart rate should be around 120 beats per minute.. What if I'm in the 140 range? Is it better to stay LOW in that "fat burning range"? I really don't understand how that works.. It seems to me that I'd burn more fat by keeping my heart rate higher.. Apparently, that's not correct.. What do you think?

Also.. I do cardio for 40 minutes first thing every morning (seven days per week) and then either another 20 minutes after weight training later in the day OR an additional 40 minutes in the afternoon if I don't lift.. I do pushes on Monday, pulls on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday and on Friday I hit a little bit of everything that I feel needs additional work.

I've been doing this since January and I've lost 70lbs - so it's working for me. I'm just curious as to whether or not I'm going about it the best way. If I can do better, I will...

Thanks in advance...

If it's worked for you and you've seen results then that's all that matters. The fat burning zone is not the best way to burn cals. You are correct. The higher your heart rate the more calories your gonna be burning. I would change up your routine. Do your cardio separate from your weight training. Either do it on different days or try your cardio after your weight training. How much more weight loss do you have in mind? I would really start to focus on your weight training. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism will be. Cardio only raises metabolism during and shortly after a session while building muscle through resistance training can permanetly raise metabolism.

A lot of further advice can only be given if we know your goals and current weight. Running or sprints or high impact exercises would not be wise if you are still quite overweight.

Thanks, Flaw.. I weigh 175lbs and I'm looking to get down to 160lbs.. I'm at about 15.5% body fat and I want to see 12%. I do weight train and I've been very consistent since last October. Since January, I've been doing the treadmill every day and have come a long, long way. But for the past month or two, I've been stuck at 175lbs and about 15.5% body fat.

Last week I switched from doing 40 minutes on a threadmill to 40 minutes on an elliptical machine. I'm burning a lot more calories now - but I'm still not losing weight. My caloric intake has been under 2000 per day this whole time.. I think I'm going to increase my calories closer to 3000 per day.

After doing some research, it seems I need about 2500 calories per day to maintain my weight without exercise - and 3000 per day with 60 minutes of exercise.. So maybe I've just been starving myself causing my body to hold onto the remaining fat...

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

I think it doesn't really matter - you can do longer periods of cardio with less intensity or you can do shorter periods of cardio with greater intensity and still burn the same amount of cals in each session. It's a numbers game in the long run.

However I would like to say that I used to be a big advocated for longer periods of cardio with less intensity - but i've switched to higher intensity cardio (4 days a week @ 30 mins a piece) and HIIT and i've noticed my endurance with the weights has really gone up.

Originally Posted by Zero Tolerance

Thanks, Flaw.. I weigh 175lbs and I'm looking to get down to 160lbs.. I'm at about 15.5% body fat and I want to see 12%. I do weight train and I've been very consistent since last October. Since January, I've been doing the treadmill every day and have come a long, long way. But for the past month or two, I've been stuck at 175lbs and about 15.5% body fat.

Last week I switched from doing 40 minutes on a threadmill to 40 minutes on an elliptical machine. I'm burning a lot more calories now - but I'm still not losing weight. My caloric intake has been under 2000 per day this whole time.. I think I'm going to increase my calories closer to 3000 per day.

After doing some research, it seems I need about 2500 calories per day to maintain my weight without exercise - and 3000 per day with 60 minutes of exercise.. So maybe I've just been starving myself causing my body to hold onto the remaining fat...

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

This really depends on your goals. if you really want to be 160lbs, you can do it by reducing your caloric intake and more cardio (think marathon runner body type). if you are more interested in how your body looks, bigger arms chest, back, legs and smaller waist then, you really need to change your workout to higher intensity and more weight training(think Sprinter body type).
Increasing your muscle mass makes your body work harder to support those muscles while resting thus a higher resting metabolic rate.
if you chose to increase your muscle mass, you will temporarily gain weight because muscle weighs more than fat. Once your body learns that it has to support those muscles it will begin to burn more calories thus causing you to lose weight.

Good luck!

Everyone is different, some like to do short bursts of interval training, others like to do long sessions of light - moderate intensity cardio. If whatever you are doing is working then stick to it. Once you plateu then you can change things up a bit.