Burning Fat Vs Burning Calories..

Weight loss is all about eating healthy, burning fat or calories to come to a good shape. Eating less and moving more is said to be the ultimate hack to shed kilos in a short period of time. But there is a huge difference between burning calories and burning fat. Both have a different effect on the body and even the outcome of burning them is different. The major question still remains the same, what is foremost, burning fat or calories? Let's find out the answer to this complex question.

The difference between burning fat and calories

Calories from food and beverages you consume either get used immediately or are stored as energy reserves. Our body converts unwanted calories to triglycerides, which are stored in fat cells. When you exercise, your body draws energy from recently consumed calories as well as energy stored for fuel. If you decrease your calorie intake and increase your physical activity, the portion of the energy you expend comes from the fat stored in the body.

As you know that you need to consume fewer calories and burn more in order to burn 1 kilo of fat. So, when you follow this trick of consuming fewer calories and involving yourself in physical activity, you technically end up burning both. Burning calories forces your body to access energy stored in the form of fat. Similarly, burning fat, while keeping your calorie intake low, will make your body use more of the calories you have just consumed and store less of them.

The end result

If you eat more calories than you burn, then of course you will not lose weight and fat from the body. Even if you workout for a good amount of time in the gym and consume the same amount of calories as soon as it is depleted, it will be stored as triglycerides in the body.

So, burning fat only provides a temporary solution to your weight loss problem. If you want to lose body fat, the only solution is to create a calorie deficit.

left arro

To lose weight and get in shape you must have a good diet and exercise regularly to burn fat. The first thing you must understand about exercise is that just because you are burning calories does not mean you are burning fat. Your main focus when you exercise should be losing body fat, and you can’t lose body fat just from burning calories. When we exercise, our bodies will start burning calories, but the calories that are burned are the calories from carbohydrates in our system. In order to burn calories from your stored fat, your body requires the presence of oxygen. There is a certain amount of oxygen that your body needs in order to start burning fat and the only way for you to measure the amount needed for your own body is to keep up with your target heart rate during exercise. Please understand that if you continue to only burn calories from carbohydrates, you will lose mostly “water weight” which leads to a decrease in your metabolism. Also, think of the calories that are burned from carbohydrates as your energy calories. If you lose too much energy calories then your muscles will not receive enough energy to increase your metabolism which indirectly burn fat. Therefore you must increase your calorie intake when you are on an exercise program to replace your burned energy calories.

Burning Fat Calories during exercise.

During aerobic exercise, your body goes through several stages before it reaches the point where you are burning fat. You will hear people say that you are only burning sugar (carbohydrates) not fat during the first 10 minutes of exercise. This is true to a certain extent. I say this because you will continue to burn sugar past the 10 minute mark if you are not working out hard enough for your body to want more oxygen; or you are working out too hard and you can’t supply your body with enough oxygen for fat burning. When you exercise you must move at a steady pace (not too fast, not too slow) so your body will utilize your stored fat (not carbohydrates or sugar) as its energy source. Also remember that just because you reached the fat burning stage does not mean you will stay there. Staying at the fat burning stage once again depends on if you are moving at a pace that is right for your body. Make sure that you are within your target heart rate range.

Burning Fat Calories at rest

The only way for you to continue to burn fat calories hours after you have finished working out is through the anaerobic exercise of weight training. Weight training is the key to burning fat at rest. Weight training is an anaerobic activity that will cause you to burn more calories than aerobic exercise. The calories that you are burning during weight training exercises are mostly calories from carbohydrates (meaning you must eat even more calories per day for energy); but the calories you burn at rest are mostly calories from fat. The reason you are burning fat at rest is because weight training increases your metabolism which uses your stored fat as energy.

To make your body the ultimate fat burning machine you must do aerobic (cardio) and anaerobic (weight training) exercises.