The Problem with the "Fat Burning" Setting

Every piece of cardio equipment these days has a "Fat Burning" setting. Many gym goers these days use this setting thinking that they will burn more fat with this setting and that it is going to help them get to their fitness goals faster using the "Fat Burning" mode. However, with a little knowledge about this setting you might start picking up the pace.

The Truth
The fat burning setting uses your age and your heart rate to keep you in a steady range or what they say is the "fat burning range". This is true. In this range you will use primarily fat as your source of energy which is the enticing factor with this setting and range. However, you do less total work when you keep your heart rate low and in this range. The harder you work, the more calories you burn, the more calories you burn the more weight you lose. To make this a little easier to understand think about it like this:

Fat Burning Mode- Say you burn 200 calories in 30 minutes and you do this 5 days a week.
                              200x5=1,000 calories burned a week
Higher Intensity- Using a higher intensity you burn 400 calories in 30 minutes and you do this 5 days a week
                              400x5=2,000 calories burned a week
By increasing your intensity you doubled the number of calories you burned in a week period. Now look at it in a 3 month period if you continued to workout 5 days a week for 12 weeks

Fat Burning Mode- 1,000x12= 12,000 calories    12,000calories/3500 calories in a pound= 3.4 pounds lost
                               in 12 weeks.
Higher Intensity-  2,000x12= 24,000 calories      24,000calories/ 3500 calories in a pound= 6.8 pounds lost
                               in 12 weeks.

The Knowledge
While the "Fat Burning" setting might seem like a good idea because you might think, "Oh! Fat Burning mode. Hell Yeah. Lets lose the love handles.", you wont get the type of results you want. Although you will burn primarily fat, you wont burn as many calories. The key to weight loss is caloric deficit. So the more calories you burn, the more energy you expend, and the more energy you expend the more weight you will lose. So next time your in the gym skip the "Fat Burn" and go harder.