Is it true that low-intensity aerobic exercise is the best way to lose fat?
A. No. It is true that the body’s reliance on carbohydrate as an energy source increases as intensity increases; the higher the exercise intensity,the greater the use of carbohydrate stores. This is the basis for the often heard recommendation to keep exercise intensity low in order to maximize the loss of body fat, or to “stay in the fat-burn zone.” I don’t buy it and neither should you. Professors Jack H.Wilmore (University of Texas at Austin) and David L. Costill (Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana) expose the fat burn fallacy in their beautifully designed textbook Physiology of Sport and Exercise (Human Kinetics, 1994): “Low-intensity aerobic activity does not necessarily lead to a greater expenditure of calories from fat. More importantly, the total caloric expenditure for a given period of time is much less when compared with high-intensity aerobic activity.” To illustrate they give the example of a 23-year-old woman who exercised for 30 minutes at 50% of her VO2 max on one d
