Teach Your Body to Burn Fat

Many people who don't experience good results in their fitness programs are sporadic exercisers. They don't stay with it long enough or consistently enough to reach even short-term goals. On the other side of that are the numerous exercisers that are religious with their programs and still feel they could be losing more body fat. So is there a magic bullet and if so where and how do you get it?
   When it comes to fat lose there is no easy way out. It comes from training your body to burn fat as fuel instead of stored carbohydrate, and this process takes time. Someone who is just starting exercise can see changes in as little as two weeks, but as with all things unfair, those of us who have been faithful fitness fanatics will see changes at a slower pace.
   Time your food intake. Avoid eating for two hours prior to exercise, or better yet exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. When you eat prior to exercise, the chemical reactions that take place to aid digestion reduce fat metabolism, stopping fat from leaving the tissue. The end result is a lowered use of fat as fuel.
   Long exercise sessions signal the body to increase fat burning. This occurs because the body only stores so many carbohydrate calories for use. Once these calories are gone you "hit the wall", basically you can not go on, as fat only burns when there are carbohydrate calories present. You want to teach your body to slow the use of carbohydrate calories and increase the use of fat calories. For the first 20 to 30 minutes of your exercise session the fuel mix is high in carbohydrate calories and low in fat calories. After that, as long as you keep your intensity low so there is a constant supply of oxygen (interrupted conversation pace), the amount of fat calories used increases. As you can see, if you limit your exercise session to 30 minutes, you are just starting to increase the fat use when you stop. After an hour of exercise and then again after three hours, fat burning is increased even further. As long sessions can be harder on your body to recover from, you should limit your long sessions to once per week. Start with your longest exercise session and build by adding 10-15 minutes each week.
   How long you go depends on your goals. Someone who exercises for basic heath and fitness may want to work up to 2 hours where endurance athletes may work up to 3 hours plus. Keep in mind the point of diminishing return is 3 hours, so be careful when employing the "if some is good, more is better" mentality.