Exercise To Lose Weight And Burn Fat

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As a coach, my main motivation is to help people feel better. I want them to find better sleep, a better mood, fewer aches, and pains, and be able to live life unrestricted by their health. While there are a lot of strong correlations between body fat percentage and chronic disease it’s not the best metric to determine your overall health. The problem is that weight loss isn’t always a good thing. If you want to burn fat and retain muscle you have to know something about the fat-burning zone. What most people consider a fat burning workout isn’t typically exercise that will work to lose weight.

A quick internet search shows how much everyone is concerned with their relationship with gravity…i.e. how much their body fat percentage causes them to weigh. Keep reading and I’ll show you that what you likely believe is true about fat burning workouts is likely false.

I’ve never owned a scale, I don’t understand the obsession, but I’m writing about it because there is so much nonsense and conflicting information online. For decades we’ve been told that we must exercise to lose weight (burn fat), and we must burn more calories than we consume. How long have we been earning and burning calories in pursuit of reducing our desired body fat percentage?

Our pursuit of calories with conventional fat burning workouts ends up putting most of us in a gym for extended periods of time struggling to breathe while our heart rate is far too high. You read that correctly. If you want to work out in the fat-burning zone you need to keep your heart rate low.

We already know food calories are not all equal. Your body is going to do different things with chocolate cake, broccoli, and steak. They all have different macro-nutrient profiles, nutrients, and will produce different insulin responses. Did you know that fat-burning exercise is the same in that a burned calorie doesn’t always equal a burned fat calorie? People assume that just because they’re moving and sweating that they’re only burning fat. That’s not true and there’s a good chance you’re not burning fat at all.

Fat Burning Workouts

Your body needs oxygen to burn fat. When you exercise at a high intensity you become oxygen-deprived and your body has to rely on its anaerobic system. The anaerobic system burns glucose, not fat. While there is a place for anaerobic exercise in a well-rounded training plan, you want the bulk of your fat-burning workouts in the aerobic zone. After an anaerobic (oxygen-deprived workout), your body will sense a drop in blood glucose and trigger cravings for carbohydrates.

When you consume carbohydrates they cause an insulin response. The body releases insulin to store glucose, as glycogen, in your muscle and liver cells. After the muscles and liver are restocked with glycogen the excess glucose is converted to triglycerides and stored as body fat. Unless you are eating in a laboratory where the exact quantity of glucose you need, to only fill your muscles and liver, is measured out for you, you’re going to gain fat from your hour-long high heart rate cardio fest.

exercising to lose weight typically fails

Back in my 20’s I had a boss who I despised. One day he had the audacity to say “you’ll do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it.” LOL! I don’t think he knew who he was talking to. Anyway, 5 nights a week I went to a step-kickboxing class where I may or may not have imagined him in the mirror in front of me. Over the course of a year, I gained 30 pounds.

My 1990’s baggy jeans were crying at the seams. For years I told myself that I was buff. Ha! I may have had endurance and some muscle but definitely not much definition. I was a pudgy fit. I quit the gym and stopped exercising and I lost weight. Fast forward to today and I tend to weigh 5-10 pounds less than I did during my pudgy fit days. The difference is (I assume because I didn’t measure it before) my body fat percentage is much lower. At the age of 46 I wear the smallest size I’ve ever worn. At Paleo f(x) I had my body fat percentage tested and it came back as 15%.

It’s not what you weigh. It’s what you’re made of.

If you want to work out in the fat-burning zone you have to keep your heart rate low so that oxygen is available. The specific target heart rate to stay below depends on your age and current health circumstances. This is also critical for those who are trying to get into ketosis. You’re trying to get your body to burn fat for fuel but your exercise routine is glucose-dependent. Instead of fat burning workouts, you’re burning sugar. You’re sending mixed signals to your body which is why you think keto didn’t work for you.

Exercise To Lose Weight – Burning More Calories With Muscle?

Consider this scenario: A 200 lb person with a resting metabolic rate of 2,000 calories per day. (To keep the numbers pretty)

The brain uses 20% of calories (400 calories)
The heart uses 20% of calories (400 calories)
The liver uses 15-20% of calories (300-400 calories)
The rest of the organs use 15-20% of calories (300-400 calories)

That leaves 20-30% of calories for skeletal muscle use. (400-600 calories)

Say this person loses 40 lbs of fat and gains 20 lbs of muscle.

A pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day.
A pound of fat burns 2 calories a day.

40 lbs fat x 2 calories/day = 80 calories per day

20 lbs of muscle x 6 calories/day = 120 calories per day

By gaining 20 lbs of muscle and losing 40 lbs of fat (120-80) this person can eat an extra 40 calories a day…

How To Reduce Your Body Fat Percentage

If I had a dollar for everything I came across on Pinterest telling people to drink this witch’s brew concoction to burn fat… What I’ve seen is that most of these “healthy drinks” keep you in the bathroom for a weekend. Monday morning rolls around and you step on the scale. Naturally, the number is smaller than it was on Friday because you’re dehydrated from your bathroom trips. You’ve also likely lost a bit of muscle.

Most of the supplements and other gimmicks out there are designed around the calories in-calories out the theory of weight loss. Believing that calories are the enemy, you can take things to prevent your body from absorbing fat. The idea is that fat has more calories per gram than protein or carbohydrates so they must be eliminated. Here’s the trick, weight loss is hormonal. Insulin is the master hormone. If you want to reduce your body fat percentage easily, teach your body to use stored body fat for fuel.

It's not how many calories you burn during an hour-long workout. What does your body burn the other 23 hours of the day?

Remember when I spoke about our friend insulin above? Insulin stores glucose in the liver and muscle cells. When insulin is always present it prevents the body from burning fat; it’s a storage hormone. This is how the wrong kinds of exercise can increase your body fat percentage. Do you know what macronutrient doesn’t produce an insulin response? Fat.

This is why so many have easy weight loss success on the paleo & ketogenic diets. Heck, think back to people of the ’80s and before versus today. What’s changed? We have a poor health epidemic. Only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy. When did it begin? After the government issued guidelines telling us to avoid fat…

If you have weight loss goals the food on your fork is responsible for 80% of your success or failure. When you adopt the primal eating strategy it’s a low insulin-producing, whole food way of eating. One of my clients lost 50 pounds in 5 months while on bed rest for a failed back surgery. Food that doesn’t produce huge insulin responses allows your body to remember how to access and burn stored body fat for fuel. This is why people get the carb-flu or keto-flu. The body is remembering that it can use other fuel sources and it has to dial up those mechanisms.

The Negative Effects of Too Much Exercise

The inflammation created by exercise is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the stress applied to the body is what causes the body to strengthen itself. However chronic cardio has more drawbacks than benefits. Chronic cardio is defined as exercise that is repeated too frequently, at a high heart rate, with little time for rest between efforts. Chronic cardio compromises general health, weight loss goals, and longevity.

Hormonal Imbalances: Exercise is stressful to the body so it activates the fight or flight response in the body causing the release of cortisol. Cortisol suppresses testosterone and human growth hormone and it increases blood glucose. With time cortisol slows fat burning, muscle development, immune function, sex drive, and energy levels. This is why people burn out from their exercise regimen.
Metabolism: As a chronic glucose burner you’ll crave carbohydrates and store them as body fat.
Inflammation: Not only is exercise inflammatory but for those who exercise chronically and consume carbohydrates to fuel their glucose-burning efforts, they’re getting a double whammy. The metabolized grains and sugars promote systemic inflammation, oxidation, and free radical damage in the body. (i.e. accelerated aging)
Injuries: Recurring muscle fatigue and inflammation leads to injuries of the joints and connective tissue. Over time expect to experience more acute and overuse injuries.
Stress: Over time excessive cortisol production promotes systemic inflammation which is a driver of diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Excessive exercise and cortisol increases oxidative damage by a factor of 10 to 20 times normal levels. Chronic stress can also compromise immune function and bone density.
Fitness: Chronic cardio diminishes speed, power, strength, and lean body mass. With time it creates inflexibility, stiffness, soreness, and muscle imbalances.

The Purpose of Exercise Isn’t To Lose Weight

Exercise isn’t punishment for what you ate, nor is it there for you to justify earning food and lowering your body fat percentage. Your body isn’t a bank, it’s a chemistry lab. Sleep, stress, movement, lifestyle, and food all affect your body’s fat stores. Exercise benefits the body by the simple fact that it’s movement. When you move you lubricate joints, help flush the lymphatic system, and you strengthen the body when the exercise is sensible.

A sensible exercise routine increases testosterone and human growth hormone. It allows the body to build muscle and age gracefully. Muscle mass is an indicator of longevity. Those who have less muscle mass die sooner than their buff counterparts. It’s like that phenomenon you see in the elderly population. People who keep moving are able to keep moving and those who don’t will find that they can’t. THAT is the #1 reason to exercise: Longevity.

Aerobic Exercise Heart Rate Is Key For Burning Body Fat

In order to stay in the aerobic (oxygen available, fat burning) heart rate during exercise you don’t want to go above 75% of your maximum heart rate. The basic Phill Maffetone equation is 180-your age which is best measured with a chest strap. If you haven’t exercised in a while or are taking medications your heart rate will be lower. What happens if you go over this number? Your body will begin burning glucose and it essentially stays there for the rest of your workout. A heart rate monitor that has an alarm to warn you before you reach 75% of the maximum is beneficial for this reason.

Myth: Exercise To Lose Weight

I hope I’ve given you enough to prompt you to begin asking questions when you encounter the next fat burning workout online. When you’re standing in the checkout line and the cooler full of soda tells you to exercise to lose weight so that you can drink their beverage, I hope you see it as the nonsense that I do.

It fires me up when I see food companies promote their sugary products and then write our health failures as our own fault. “If only you tried harder, exercised more, and really wanted it…” It’s such nonsense. Food matters more than chasing “fat burning workouts” to lose weight. It matters so much more than we are led to believe. Ya know, if they told you to consume less of their product or avoid it completely that’s bad for business. Stick to foods that don’t have ingredient lists or if they have ingredients, they’re ingredients you’d have in your kitchen. That will get you pretty far.

Leave a comment below and let me know what health topic you’d like me to write about.