What are Eagan Personal Trainers saying about the Fat Burning Zone

First let’s get one thing straight about personal training. You could have every single personal trainer in Eagan in one room and each personal trainer would probably have a little different philosophy about strength training, weight loss, cardio training and flexibility and nutrition.

At the Body Project personal training studio our line is, your body's first choice of fuel during exercise is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are stored in the body as glycogen, both in the liver and muscle. The liver's job is to break down glycogen into glucose to maintain suitable levels of glucose in the blood. The muscles on the other hand, tap directly into their glycogen stores for energy production.

Depending on the duration and intensity of the exercise, your body will rely on more complex carbohydrates (stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver) and fatty acids for its fuel.

What happens is that as the intensity of exercise increases, there is more reliance on carbohydrates for fuel. Typically, intensities greater than 70% of VO2 max (or maximum heart rate for our purposes) will have carbohydrates as the dominant fuel source.

NOW LISTEN UP...VERY CAREFULLY, because this is where most personal trainers in Eagan get it wrong.

This doesn't mean that working at high intensities doesn't burn fat and help with your weight loss program. Working at higher intensities allows more total calories to be burned and that's what really matters if you're looking to lose weight and keep it off long term.

There is a phenomenon known as EPOC (or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). What this refers to is a process whereby the body expends calories (and many more that in your workout in most cases) after the workout as your body is re-establishing homeostasis - its point of balance.

That's why at the Body Project personal training studio we are huge fan of intense workouts and interval cardio training sessions. They are by far the best way to burn calories and thus fat - not during the workout (as you'll see on many cardio machine screens) but after the workout. Some studies have shown that the body's metabolic rate can stayed elevated for up to 16 hours after just 20 minutes of interval running!

The point is that your body chooses different fuels during different situations. Because fats yield more calories and are slower burning as they are metabolized, they tend to be used over longer durations when compared to carbohydrates. However, the body wants to conserve its blood glucose and glycogen stores.

As you become more fit your body will become more efficient at using fats for fuel while sparing your vital carbohydrate reserves. Someone who is totally unfit will obviously fatigue sooner, one of the reasons being that their carbohydrate stores are more quickly dissolved and utilized.

Fitter individuals can last much longer because they have developed the ability to use the slow burning fats as fuel, and therefore conserve their energy better.

Carbohydrates that are used during exercise come from both glycogen stores in muscle and from your blood glucose. Within carbohydrate metabolism blood glucose and glycogen are used to varying degrees depending on the nature of the activity. However, the body's first order of business is in maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.

Blood glucose is the main fuel source for the brain, so I'm sure you can appreciate why it's pretty important. As intensity increases, muscle glycogen is increasingly used. Blood glucose use also increases slightly. However, to offset its usage and to maintain stable blood sugar levels (for the vital organs), the liver breaks down its glycogen stores into glucose for the blood.

So the point is this, any personal trainer worth his/her weight in salt will tell you, intensity is king! Don't pay attention to those "cardio" and "fat burning" zone graphs on all the cardio machines - they do nothing but confuse you. So make sure your personal trainer is having you do interval strength training and interval cardio. You’ll lose weight a lot faster this way and it’s much safer and more efficient than long slow cardio.
At the Body Project personal training studio all of our workouts are interval based and yours should be as well.

Eagaan Personal Trainer has become popular in weight loss program in and around Eagan. They guarantee the best fat loss program around the city. You can visit them here http://thebodyprojectstudio.com/