It is believed by many that it is necessary to perform hours of aerobic exercise to lose weight. However, looking at the physiological response to aerobic exercise we see this is a very poor strategy. Aerobic exercise is not beneficial because it is a highly inefficient way to cause fat loss. In fact being asleep for eight hours burns more calories than low intensity cycling for one hour. Increasing exercise intensity is therefore vital if exercise is to be an effective fat burner.
Exercise Can’t Burns Belly Fat
Firstly, it should be made clear that belly fat is a symptom of a metabolic dysfunction. Belly fat is an outward manifestation of fatty liver and insulin resistance. Poor quality diet is the cause of this dysfunction and the cure is therefore a reversal of this situation. Eating high quality foods is therefore necessary to reverse fatty liver, and exercise, even high intensity exercise, has little benefit. If you are performing exercise to burn the fat on your belly, forget it. Just eat better food.
Exercise Can Burn Other Fat
Exercise is effective at burning other body fat. Subcutaneous peripheral fat responds well to exercise. However, it is important to change the way you think about exercise to efficiently use this strategy. Most think of exercise as a calorie burning exercise. This is conceptually wrong because it blinds the individual to performing aerobic exercise for hours on end. Instead exercise should be thought of as a muscle building exercise. It is the muscle gains that are the key to fat burning.
Exercise Intensity is Key
High intensity exercise causes metabolic changes in muscle tissue that are not present following low intensity exercise. In particular high intensity exercise causes adaptation of the muscle fibres causing hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is muscle growth, and it is this aspect of exercise that causes fat loss. As muscle mass increases, resting metabolic rate increases too. This increases the calories being consumed during the course of the day during everyday activities, even during sleep.
How To Increase Exercise Intensity
Exercise intensity is increased by raising the force output of the muscle. In layman’s terms this means providing more resistance to the muscle, or asking it to work with the same resistance but faster. Strength and power movements are therefore of high intensity. Sprinting, throwing, jumping and lifting are all high intensity exercises. Because high intensity exercise fatigues the muscle quickly, there is no need to spend hours training. Thirty minutes three times and week is all that is needed.