Hi all,

First off I want to thank John Stone and his pics for getting me motivated to start losing weight, and Id like to thank all you guys for your knowledge and helpfulness on these forums (I lurk everyday).

Its been one year since my first post (http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=35469) and starting a healthier lifestyle. While I'm not quite done yet, Im glad to say I've gone from 263 pounds to 183 pounds and a 42" waist to a 34" in 1 year by just eating right and being more active. I didn't follow a strict diet, I have just simply been watching my calorie intake and cutting out junk. A lot of people compliment me on my weight loss and it feels great, however I know i still have a fairly high BF% for my weight(i still have my chest fat :(), and need to start weight training. My current goal is to get down to 170 and assess my bf% from there and see how much further I should go.

When I started last April, I lost about 15 pounds and got down to 250lbs around june. At this point I stopped watching what I was eating but somehow maintained that weight until August. Late August is when I got serious and began to lose again. I didnt add cardio in until late november, when I started going jogging at night around an outside track. Even then, I didnt follow a weekly cardio schedule, it was pretty much whenever I felt like running.

A few months ago I began running on a treadmill instead, and enjoy it a lot more. I've been doing 20 minute sessions where I run a mile straight at 5.2 mph (~12min mile)then walk the rest of the time at 4.3 mph. Still, these sessions are pretty much "whenever i feel like it", but at least twice a week.

Ive now decided i'm going to do 30 minute sessions, sun-thurs. I did my first one today and felt great. However I recently read about "fat burning zones" when monitoring heart BPM. Usually when I'm running my first mile, i'll check my heart rate around .75 miles, and i will be up to 190 bpm, which seems a little high to me. Now, I just did the math (according to this website (http://erunningtips.com/running-heart-rate-zones.htm)) and it says my BPM should be about 144-158 for optimal fat burning. If I run at 5.2 mph and get up to 170-190 bpm, does this mean I have to slow it down? If im walking at 4.3 i'm usually at around 150 BPM, so should I really just be walking for my whole cardio session?

Whenever I hear about losing fat I always hear run, run, run, but now it seems like I should be walking. I'm confused, haha. Any thoughts?


(btw, I posted this in beginners because well, it's sort of a beginners question, but feel free to move it to the fat loss/cutting forum if its supposed to go there)

First, good work with the initial weight loss :tucool:

The fat burning zone is bull. So don't worry about it. You might burn a higher percentage of fat at a lower HR, but you burn less overall calories in the exercise period so you end up burning less fat overall, not to mention the fact that you don't get the EPOC effect of a raised metabolism for hours after the exercise has stopped.

And I'd advise you to get in the weight room. It will make more of an effect in body recomposition and fat loss than cardio (especially "fat burning zone" cardio).

Read this (http://www.t-nation.com/article/bodybuilding/the_hierarchy_of_fat_loss&cr=) for a good explanation of the above suggestions.

Chumpy congrats on the weight loss. You seemed to find what works for you and that's fantastic.

From my research on this forum, the key to weight loss is weight training. The idea is more muscle you have the more calories you will burn at rest then you would if it was fat.

Cardio is also good to burn calories but running and walking could be harmful to your joints. Biking or elliptical machines are probably best for cardio to minimize joint problems. Although at your new weight this probably isn't so much of a problem as it was this time last year.

Again, congrats and good luck on reaching your goal.

running and walking could be harmful to your joints.

Running? Yes.

Walking? I dont think so. Walking can actually promote healthy joints.

Running purely for body composition goals wouldn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense, especially if there's not a resistance training program to go along with it.

I'm not sure who is telling you to "run, run, run" for fat loss, but you might want to check if their goals are the same as yours.

Sprinting and high power output conditioning drills would be a slightly different story.