How to Increase Your Metabolism Now

Maximize Metabolism Through Medium Intensity Activity Explained

Mar 18, 2009

Overloading our bloodstream's energy sources during exercise is necessary for increased metabolic rate. How to do this through heart rate monitoring is simple.

If you are new to fitness, or have not been doing cardiovascular exercises such as walking, swimming, jogging, elliptical training, biking etc., then the suggested long slow distance training in Part 1 of this series titled, How To Maximize Calories Burned, with minimal emphasis on heart rate intensity is used to illustrate the need to build a base of endurance for furthering harder intensity calorie burning zones.

Think of this slow long training as a necessary “evil” for furthering fat burning ability. A long slow distance base of training aids in the formation of new life changing habits, primes the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, as well as the cardiovascular system for a lifetime of increased fat burning ability and a speedier anti-aging higher metabolism by reducing the occurrence of injuries, as well as the occurrence of premature overzealous training which often leads to failure.

Fat Burning Zone Explained

In order for a muscle to function it needs energy. There are three options that a muscle has to use fuel:

3. Protein - only used by muscles under depleted circumstances. Consider carbohydrates and fats as the two main sources.

When using energy our muscles use a mix of carbohydrates and fats; this is based on a number of factors, one of them being intensity and duration of activity. Fats require more oxygen than carbohydrates to burn. As a result, as exercise intensity increases and less oxygen is available, the body shifts form a fat burning zone to using carbohydrates for energy in order to maintain the activity. This doesn’t, however, mean that less fat is burned. In low intensity exercise the fat being used is coming from the blood stream and this is commonly called the fat burning zone. In order to understand the whole picture though, we must look at where the source of the fat being used is coming from.

Energy Source Paramount in Increasing Fat Burn Ability

With increased intensity and duration of an activity, the muscles need more oxygen and energy, so our hearts beat faster to get blood to the muscles quicker. In medium intensity long duration activities the blood stream gets overloaded with work, including the job of providing an energy source to the working muscles.

When looking to increase our fat metabolism, it’s necessary to get to this point of overloading our bloodstream’s energy sources. By doing this, the overloaded blood stream must turn to its own body’s muscle fat - namely the primary muscle mover’s fat (triglycerides) and glycogen (sugar) stores- which provide energy to the working body. Obtaining a state of moderate intensity training, where the body is working harder and the heart rate is being taxed at a perceived exertion of 6 out of a 10 point scale is when fat burning is amplified beyond a simple calorie burn. To translate this into a target heart rate, achieve a heart rate of approximately 80% of your maximum heart rate and continue for duration of 20 minutes and preferably 30 – 60 minutes continuously.

How to Figure Target Heart Rate at 80 Percent

In the next of a 4 part fat loss series, you’ll be surprised at how fat burning can be optimized further. It has to do with high intensity interval training and it’s what all the fitness magazines are writing about. You’ll learn how to use it correctly, as the secret lies in what is called the after-burn. It breaks all the rules applied here, but you’ll see why it’s absolutely necessary in obtaining a lean more muscular look that includes the difficult to diminish waistline.

The copyright of the article How to Increase Your Metabolism Now in Fitness is owned by Kim Miller. Permission to republish How to Increase Your Metabolism Now in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.