Heart rate zones, what are they and do they matter?
Heart rate zones are measurements in percentages of a person's maximum heart rate. They are supposed to be used as a tool for finding peak fat-burning or carbohydrate-burning rates. But do the different zones matter in overall weight loss? Can a person lose more weight by staying in the fat burning zone?
First I need to discuss the heart rate zones, and to know these zones you'll need to know your maximum heart rate. To find your maximum heart rate take 220 and subtract your age. Or for a slightly more accurate measurement multiply your age by 0.7 and subtract that from 208.
Now onto the zones.
The first zone is the so-called fat-burning zone, which is 60-75% of your maximum heart rate. The claim here is your body will use more fat as energy since your body has more time to convert fat to energy. Is this true? I have no idea.
The next zone is the cardio or aerobic zone. This is 75-85% of the maximum heart rate and is supposedly where carbohydrates are mostly used since they are easier to convert into energy.
But does being in the fat-burn zone help you lose weight faster? The answer, as far as I can tell, is no it doesn't. Weight lose comes down to simple mathematics. Burn more calories than are taken in and weight loss occurs. So, if you take in 2,000 and you burn 2,500 through normal body function and focused exercise, you'll shed pounds.
So onto the zones. Exercises that require a higher heart rate burn more calories in the same amount of time as exercises with a lower heart rate. If you don't believe me, check it out. There are several how-many-calories-am-I-burning calculators available on the web. Plug in simple numbers: 30 minutes of walking versus 30 minutes of running. See what you come up with. Here are some numbers from my own training: 54 minutes of walking with an average HR of 118 bpm (beats per minute) burned 474 calories; 25 minutes of step aerobics with and average HR of 138 bpm yielded 511 calories. It's easy to see that if I maintained my heart rate for 50 minutes of step aerobics, I would double that of walking in 4 fewer minutes.
All that being said, heart rate zones matter for those who need to control their heart rate for whatever reasons relating to medical conditions.
Now that we have that out of the way I'll talk about heart rate monitors next week.
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