I started reading some of the Anthony Ellis fat loss reports after some suggestion from some threads in this forum however on Part 2 - Stepping up to the next Level it talkes about doubling your cardio, which for anyone who's been a runner or cyclist or triathlete, etc knows that 3 days a week cardio isn't going to cut it, Anthony however is suggesting that the reason to do more is to burn more calories as suggested below from his report. However, isn't this a contradiction because the more calories you burn the more you have to replace, if you're burning 600 more calories per workout and you're already on a diet with say a 500 calorie deficiency then you need to add an extra 600 more calories to your diet in order not to go into starvation mode? I'm just confused because I agree with a lot that he says however this seems completely off. He also refers to the "hard cardio" as being how you lose the weight but I thought it was staying in the aerobic threshold that burns the fat, not going above into anaerobic threshold? I'm probably missing something and if that's the case please correct me. Thanks.


"HOW TO TRIPLE YOUR RATE OF FAT LOSS IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS
-------------------------------------
While we're on the subject of burning more calories, what would
happen if, in addition to increasing your cardio from three to six
days per week, you increased the intensity so that you are burning
600 calories per workout? With six workouts at 600 calories per
workout you're up to 3600 calories per week.

HOLY ABDOMINALS BATMAN, YOU JUST TRIPLED YOUR FAT LOSS!

Yes it's that simple and the solution was right there in front of
you all along.

By the way, this kind of frequent cardio is how I reach 3 - 4% body
fat for competitions: Six days per week of HARD cardio, 45 minutes
per session."

I thought it was staying in the aerobic threshold that burns the fat, not going above into anaerobic threshold? I'm probably missing something and if that's the case please correct me.

Although it's true that low intensity exercise burns a higher fraction of fat calories than high intensity exercise - that only goes for calories burned while exercising.

If you exercise at low intensity, then exercise calories burned are all you are going to get, and so you better keep it low.

If you exercise at high intensity, then calories keep burning after you stop exercising. If the exercise was really high intensity, then it's a lot of calories. And just about all of them come from fat.

You can actually check this yourself if you have a calorie counting heart monitor. I did that recently:

Short interval workout resulting in:
203 calories in 15:43
MHR 190, AHR 139

Then, after I stopped working out, I reset the monitor and counted calories for the next two hours:

692 Calories in 2:04
MHR 151, AHR 98

This two hour period was spent taking a shower, walking a half block back to my office, and then sitting in front of a computer. I normally burn about 90-110 calories per hour so the calories burned in this two hours represents about 450-500 calories due to the workout. People have shown that the EPOC ("afterburn") calories are almost entirely due to fat burning. (It makes sense because your body is replenishing muscle and liver glycogen - why would it burn glycogen to do that?)

During the workout itself, the intervals averaged 139 beats per minute - which is about 72% of my maximum heart rate. I can tell you that if I did 15 minutes of LISS at that heart rate there will be almost no EPOC. The low intensity might get me 200 calories burned. Because of the short duration, not as much would be fat as you would get from the tables (which assume more like 30-45 minute duration).

But the high intensity workout burned the 200 calories - probably almost all carbs, and then, I get the 450-500 calories of fat burned.

There is no low intensity workout that will get me that many calories burned in 15 minutes, let alone at a high percentage of fat.

So no, don't go by the fat burning zone myth.

I started reading some of the Anthony Ellis fat loss reports after some suggestion from some threads in this forum however on Part 2 - Stepping up to the next Level it talkes about doubling your cardio, which for anyone who's been a runner or cyclist or triathlete, etc knows that 3 days a week cardio isn't going to cut it, Anthony however is suggesting that the reason to do more is to burn more calories as suggested below from his report. However, isn't this a contradiction because the more calories you burn the more you have to replace, if you're burning 600 more calories per workout and you're already on a diet with say a 500 calorie deficiency then you need to add an extra 600 more calories to your diet in order not to go into starvation mode? I'm just confused because I agree with a lot that he says however this seems completely off. He also refers to the "hard cardio" as being how you lose the weight but I thought it was staying in the aerobic threshold that burns the fat, not going above into anaerobic threshold? I'm probably missing something and if that's the case please correct me. Thanks.


"HOW TO TRIPLE YOUR RATE OF FAT LOSS IN THE NEXT 7 DAYS
-------------------------------------
While we're on the subject of burning more calories, what would
happen if, in addition to increasing your cardio from three to six
days per week, you increased the intensity so that you are burning
600 calories per workout? With six workouts at 600 calories per
workout you're up to 3600 calories per week.

HOLY ABDOMINALS BATMAN, YOU JUST TRIPLED YOUR FAT LOSS!

Yes it's that simple and the solution was right there in front of
you all along.

By the way, this kind of frequent cardio is how I reach 3 - 4% body
fat for competitions: Six days per week of HARD cardio, 45 minutes
per session."

No, you don't have to stay at a 500 calorie deficit to safely and healthfully lose weight. Neither do you have to make up the excess calories you burn to avoid 'starvation mode.' When aiming for the high single digits or say 10%, it's likely you'll be able to get there with none to minimal to moderate if your weight training and diet is in gear, depending on who you are. But when trying to get extremely lean, say 5-6%, some changes are going to be made. This will either entail cutting calories more and/or more cardio. Many people, depending on metabolism, will not be able to cut calories andy lower without depressing their metabolism and compromsing muscle. It places a huge stress on the body. Cardio puts stress on the body as well, but it's infiintely preferable than cutting calories excessively low, particularly if it's predominately low-intensity that doesn't place the body under much stress.

Although it's true that low intensity exercise burns a higher fraction of fat calories than high intensity exercise - that only goes for calories burned while exercising.

If you exercise at low intensity, then exercise calories burned are all you are going to get, and so you better keep it low.

If you exercise at high intensity, then calories keep burning after you stop exercising. If the exercise was really high intensity, then it's a lot of calories. And just about all of them come from fat.

You can actually check this yourself if you have a calorie counting heart monitor. I did that recently:

Short interval workout resulting in:
203 calories in 15:43
MHR 190, AHR 139

Then, after I stopped working out, I reset the monitor and counted calories for the next two hours:

692 Calories in 2:04
MHR 151, AHR 98

This two hour period was spent taking a shower, walking a half block back to my office, and then sitting in front of a computer. I normally burn about 90-110 calories per hour so the calories burned in this two hours represents about 450-500 calories due to the workout. People have shown that the EPOC ("afterburn") calories are almost entirely due to fat burning. (It makes sense because your body is replenishing muscle and liver glycogen - why would it burn glycogen to do that?)

During the workout itself, the intervals averaged 139 beats per minute - which is about 72% of my maximum heart rate. I can tell you that if I did 15 minutes of LISS at that heart rate there will be almost no EPOC. The low intensity might get me 200 calories burned. Because of the short duration, not as much would be fat as you would get from the tables (which assume more like 30-45 minute duration).

But the high intensity workout burned the 200 calories - probably almost all carbs, and then, I get the 450-500 calories of fat burned.

There is no low intensity workout that will get me that many calories burned in 15 minutes, let alone at a high percentage of fat.

So no, don't go by the fat burning zone myth.

Yes it is a myth. But there's only so much high-intensity work you can do in a week, particularly with a strenuous weight-lifting program. So, if there's a need/desire to create a greater deficit, it's best done by adding some low-intensity work. There's a place for everything.

Yes it is a myth. But there's only so much high-intensity work you can do in a week

That interval workout (which was one mile total running intervals with walking recovery) is really not that intense from a training planning standpoint. A lot of coaches think that overtraining is a lot more likely when you get past 40 miles a week. So there is a large amount of room for other workouts, even if you did one of these interval workouts each day.

The people that recommend HIIT normally want a workout which is about twice as big as the one I used in my example.