Best way to lose (excess) fat?

Hello everyone, this is my first post to this group - I hope you can help, sorry it's a bit long but I don't know where to start.

I am (was) a high class rower. 4 years ago when I left Uni. at the age of 26, I weighed 203 lbs. 2 years ago I tried to get fit, and was putting in 2000m ergo times worthy of a trial with the national squad - even so I had excess fat (especially around my midriff) and could only ever get down to 217 lbs. After s period of illness (excessive tiredness, possibly caused by overtraining), I am back at 243lbs and I am desperate to get fit again. I am 193cm tall and of medium/large build.

4 years ago I maxed it at 207bpm, and for a 26 year-old that wasn't too bad if you look at 220-age. I have a hear-rate monitor, and wish to know what is the best way to burn the fat - I have no problems with fitness, that returns pretty quick, but I think I always train too hard to burn fat. Is it a myth that you need to train something like 55% of max heart-rate to burn fat? Or is it more the duration of exercise rather than the intensity? If I blast away at 85-90% of max heart-rate (cos I can do that easily enough) will I ever burn fat?

I hope somebody can offer some advice.

Thankyou, Steve

Yes.

Or is it more the duration of exercise rather than the intensity?

Yes.

The bottom line is calories eaten versus calories burned.

Eat less.

I believe it is a myth based upon my reading and my personal experience.

For the serious person, I sincerely suggest that you read the Zig Zag Diet at the Dr. Squat web site. It is the very best article that I have ever seen on body fat control. My own experience with losing and keeping 50 extra pounds off supports the above advice.

Sling Skate

Buy ALTOIDS!!! Thanks for the support UK.

Sometimes you see the heart rate range of 60-70 per cent max heart rate described as the 'weight loss range.' It isn't that you don't burn calories at higher intensities, but that at this level, burning calories is pretty much *all* that is happening. That's an exaggeration, but since calories burned is pretty close to a linear function of distance covered, duration counts for much more for weight loss than for cardio-vascular conditioning.

Maximum heart rate is not a measure of fitness. Fitness has some effect, but the greater effect is that larger hearts beat more slowly.

Stephen Diamond

In misc.fitness.aerobic

Dr. Mirkin disagrees with you. visit www.drmirkin.com and search for max heart rate

In misc.fitness.aerobic

He is a practicing physician, a urologist I think as well as a cyclist. I've heard him on the radio, I don't know if he is on TV.

You don't have to accept them at face value. Virtually all of them have the relevent study citations at the end of the article.

He is speaking of, and mentioned, the Bainbridge Reflex. Do you know what it is? Do you know what the human heart does in response to increased atrial pressure?

Ignores it? Of what relevence is it? I think that if he is close friends with the MD that came up with the formula, he is in a better position than you to know whether or not it was a crude guess.

+/- what? According to this site, http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/max.htm, it is +/- 6. This formula grossly underpredicts me. I'm 40 and routinely see 192-193 on my Polar. The prediction of 180 for a 40 year old matches 220-age, which also misses me by 12 bpm.

Interestingly enough, the study responsible for the derivation of the formula you quote lists this little cutey as their first conclusion, which you conveniently left out of your dissertation:

1. Currently, there is no acceptable method to estimate HRmax.

The one in question does not have citations. Even if it did, being unable to accept his purported facts at face value is damning.

The reflex has no bearing on the question of whether there is a fixed limit to heart rate increase. I don't think anyone knows what the physiological basis is for that limit, but the data I mention below pretty much prove that it is there.

The relevance is that both before and after the formula was published there was work on the subject against which the formula could be compared. The formula was not a crude rushed guess. But actually more importantly, there has been subsequent work both confirming the formula as an approximation and revising it in light of more refined data. This all is ignored. To read Myrkin one would think this estimate has been accepted on faith. It hasn't.

I have a formula which uses a log transformation of age. I wonder how it stacks up against the linear formula below. But all these formulas are pretty close to the standard one, which probably has survived because it is easiest to compute (and very close to correct below age 40).

The big point is that, contrary to Myrkin, the strong relationship between age and maximum heart rate has been substantiated repeatedly. The standard error in prediction by the formula below is only about 6.5. There isn't room for any important contribution from muscular strength, and the data suggest there isn't any contribution at all.

The data indicate that you are an anomaly. You are almost two standard errors from the mean for your age, in the top few percentiles. The data also indicate that your anomalous maximum heart rate is not a cause OR effect of your fitness (or lack of fitness, or whatever). Anomalies occur at both ends of the distribution. If you are very fit, someone else, who is very unfit, will also have your max heart rate.

The formula predicts me at 170. The logarithmic formula predicts me to be 177. My maximum heart rate (self-determined) is 176.

The article is intended for cardiologists who conduct stress tests. For the medical indications for testing, no estimate will do, and doctors who stop the stress test based on a formula are not doing their jobs. But for most people who use the formula to adjust their level of exercise, it is adequate, provided it corresponds to perceived exertion, and with adjustment based on perceived exertion, and what one actually sees on one's HRM. If I didn't have the formula, I would not put much confidence in my test of my MHR.

Stephen Diamond

Is your resting heart rate low as a result of conditioning? If so, your maximal heart rate should be unaffected, and would be predicted to be between 162 and 180 (with only a 5% change of being higher than 180, and a 5% chance of being lower than 162.

Do you have any idea of what your anaerobic threshold is? If you have an HRM, you can gradually increase the pace until you hit the point where your breathing fairly suddenly becomes labored, and you sense the lactic acid accumulation (heavy or rubbery feeling in legs, if you are running). Anaerobic threshold does change with conditioning, but won't be higher than 90% of your cardiac reserve (Max heart rate-resting heart rate). If your anaerobic threshold is close to 150, then you know your doctor erred.

Stephen Diamond

It may be, to some extent; but before the conditioning I started 6 or so months ago, it was still below 60.

I don't even have an idea of what it is!

If you have an HRM, you can gradually increase the pace until you hit the point where your breathing fairly suddenly becomes labored, and you sense the lactic acid accumulation (heavy or rubbery feeling in legs, if you are running). Anaerobic threshold does change with conditioning, but won't be higher than 90% of your cardiac reserve (Max heart rate-resting heart rate). If your anaerobic threshold is close to 150, then you know your doctor erred.

I don't have one, and have little interest in pursuing at this point; as long as I maintain my weight, and keep up my exercise, I won't worry.