Equipment for Fat Fella

hippy [quote]eeehhhh [quote]haj a daily commuting ride of about 25-30 minutes each way will burn some fat.. worked for me :)
I'd not like to do it on a folding bike though..

yeah, definitely.
remember you burn max quantity of fat at 60% of your maximum heart rate. At 80% you're exercisingly aerobically and the fat burn drops significantly.[/quote]

What are you talking about?

"fat burning zones" are bullpat. Your body may have a preference for fat as fuel at 60% HRmax but you will require more calories in total if you spend the same time at 80% HRmax.[/quote]

Yeah, ok.

Also, I think you meant anaerobically (ie. without oxygen) and there's no switchover point for this to happen - your body will still be using fat as fuel at all but the highest intensity of exercise.

Yes, I did mean anaerobically instead of aerobically.

As your HR increases, the percentage of fat supplying the energy decreases and the percentage of muscle glycogen (carbs) used increases. Once you slow down you will again move to using more fat as fuel but you still need carbs present to use it. An 80% max exercise will burn use more energy fat/carbohydrates in TOTAL than a 60% one.

Yep, I agree with all that you've said so far, so yes I'm wrong.

It will depend on the person whether they can maintain the higher intensity.

So if the guy concerned is as unfit/overweight as he says, I think he's more likely to burn more fat by exercising at 60% than 80% because he'll just be plain knackered and stop quickly, which is more what I was getting at originally.

If you look at the table on http://exercise.about.com/cs/cardioworkouts/l/aa022601a.htm (the source they got it from seems reasonable) there's only a 10% difference in the number of fat calories burned, but he's more likely to maintain 30min at 60% than 30min at 80%, and consequently burn more fat overall at 60%. So, I think in this case considering everything, I am not as wrong as you make out.

And also, why does every piece of CV equipment in my uni gym have a table with the headings age, then target heart rate for fat burn and cardio, if it's as flat-out wrong as you suggest? I think it applies for most people who are interested in loosing excess body fat.