What "effort" for fat burning?

First thing I'd do is learn to spin and keep you rpm at 90-100 iirc. You'd usualy start this by dropping the gear you think you should be in by one or two to achieve the desired rpm. Once you keep this habit then try spinning in slightly harder gears which will result in you going faster but keeping the same rpm. Keep working at this avoid labouring slow turns by you legs and keep that rpm up. I believe the reason is to keep your heart rate up and avoid building bulky muscles on your legs, Imagine the analogy between doing 40 reps of 5 KG weights on your biceps as oposed to reps of 10 x 20 kg weights...that later will make your arms massive the former make learner muscle and work you heart more over a longer time.

Secondly do some reading on you diet. Try to cut out the processed carbs from stuff like white bread, pasta doughy stuff etc and of course sugar. Loads of info out there mate just do some googling

Also try and find some hills once yuor fitness gets better.

Now, there's a question:


How fit are you? The fitter you are, the more efficient your cardio system is, the more fat you burn (and less glycogen) so the longer you can go.

It's true (to an extent) that less effort burns more fat, but more effort burns more fat AFTER you stop training.

Ignore the "fat burning zone" myth, PLEASE!

Jetlag wrote:

Now, there's a question:


How fit are you? The fitter you are, the more efficient your cardio system is, the more fat you burn (and less glycogen) so the longer you can go.

It's true (to an extent) that less effort burns more fat, but more effort burns more fat AFTER you stop training.

Ignore the "fat burning zone" myth, PLEASE!

edited: wrong guy sorry

Your totally right about the fat burning zones its rediculous to believe that you can target fat burn. Fat is burned when the body hasn't got a ready supply of glycogen available to it. This is the basis of all these low carb diets. I don't eat carbs after lunch time or if I do they will be fibous carbs such as green beans which are hard to break down and don't flood you blood with sugar.

I'd advice reading about insulin production and what happens to carbs when you eat them, it will open the eyes of the OP. I allways thought a pasta was healthy but it isn't far off eatting spoonfuls of sugar. The body metabolises pasta, white bread etc very quickly and produces a wave of insulin to deal with the glycogen. Insulin is responsible for fat storage! Aditionally as the insulin goes to work on the glycogen you get a sharp drop in blood sugar levels which sends a message to you brain that you need more i.e HUNGRY.

I don't see the "fat burning zone" as a total myth. Lower intensity exercise does burn a higher _proportion_ of fat. Higher intensity will burn more fat overall but you won't be able to keep it up for as long.

If you are time-limited, higher intensity is a good idea.

If your exercise is more limited by your body than your schedule, with lower intensity you will be able to do more of it.

See:

http://www.divefitness.com/html/article ... o_role.pdf

Sustained exercise utilizes a combination of glycogen, fats, and protein for fuel.
Glycogen makes up the greatest percentage of fuel burned, with fats also being a
significant component. Except for extremely long duration exercise or when the body is
starved of fuel, proteins contribute a very small portion to our energy utilization.

So, all the while our body is burning glycogen, our body is consuming its fat stores.
When the glycogen stores run out, our ability to continue exercising goes kaput. For
workouts lasting greater than about 60 minutes, we can ensure that we continue to burn
fat by ingesting additional carbohydrates during the workout. Though the percentage of
energy derived from fat may increase, our total fat calories burned will diminish with our
workout intensity.

Just as important as ingesting carbohydrates is the timing of eating. Our bodies are
primed to store carbohydrates as glycogen for a period of about two hours immediately
following exercise. From there, our ability to replenish depleted glycogen stores drops
off precipitously. Instead, calories that would’ve been stored as readily available
glycogen are more likely end up stored as fat. Including some protein with post-workout
carbohydrates has also been shown to increase the amount of carbohydrates stored as
glycogen.

That's exactly what I said.


If your glycogen stores are full, excess carbs will be converted to fat, eventually, absolutely. The key word is eventually. It doesn't matter what time of the day you eat carbs, it really, really doesn't (except post exercise, see below).

But we're not talking about people that sit on the sofa all the time If you don't exercise, then you'll never use enough glycogen to need replenishing.

If you're stores aren't full, then any carbs you eat will be turned to glycogen, not fat! Also, within 2 hours of finishing exercise, your body is at its most receptive. Any longer than that, and, as you say, the carbs are more likely to be stored as fat (even though, not all of them), whether your glycogen stores are full or not.


And there is no doubt that highly refined carbs (again, as I said above) places excess strain on the pancreas due to the insulin creation and leads to Type II diabetes. The diabetic website have that one nailed, too, as I understand it.


My point is simply that eating carbs does not inevitably lead to fat gain. It isn't accurate to say that it's automatically converted to fat (as is the basis of the anti carb brigade, but the diet industry is geared at people failing to lose weight, otherwise they'd go out of business. They're also geared at people sitting on their asses.).


I don't eat white bread because whole grain bread is better. Eat wholewheat pasta, not white. Eat brown, wild or basmati rice instead of long grain. But you CAN eat carbs and lose weight, particularly if you exercise regularly, simply because, if you exercise, you MUST have glycogen to convert fat into fuel.



No glycogen, no go. It's called Bonking.

p.s internet arguements are working wonders for my not smoking, it's keeping me busy

I buy Oak cakes which I eat a bit before I ride. During a long ride I'm drinking juice from my camel back and after well...I guess you can have what you like thats the beauty of excercise . The carb content of the oak cakes is pretty much split 50/50 complex v sugar they seem to work pretty well. While sounding a bit hypocritical I would suspect starchy carbs like white pasta might replace glycogen quickly after a ride. There's my next research project for the day.

Yes I hate smoking but I want to eat my keyboard and break things....even the cat has gone in to hiding

Obviously a bit OT but here's an artical about post workout requirements.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _n6006157/