Notes About Health

People often question which is better for burning body fat, low or high intensity cardio exercise. The answer is, both will burn body fat, but which type of cardio exercise works better to burn those fat cells.

How your body reacts to different forms of exercise has been studied by many scientists. It was first discovered that high impact cardio burns glycogen (carbohydrates stored in your liver and muscles for energy). In contrast low impact cardio is believed to burn more fat then glycogen stores in your body.

You may be wondering why there are still so many obese people in the world when many of them are doing some cardio exercise. The problem may be that they stick with the low intensity program and never push themselves to achieve more or to reach that high intensity level to peak their energy burning internal system.

Science has shown that low intensity cardio, when done in the proper amount is great for burning body fat; doing exercises like walking or swimming. But don?t discount the great effect that high intensity cardio has to offer. When exercising at a high intensity your body efficiently burns through the excess carbohydrates (glycogen) and looks for more sources of energy. It will search out body fat and burn that too.

When you make high intensity exercise a regular part of your day, your body becomes more efficient at processing excess carbohydrates. It first refills the glycogen stores, sort of like refueling the tank for when you need it later, rather than just turning into fat because you are not actively burning it at the moment.

High intensity cardio not only burns the calories fast during your workout but it also continues to burn them hours later, dipping into the fat stores as well, once the glycogen is burned up that is. Low intensity cardio doesn?t have that same effect on your body.

Again, it bears repeating high intensity cardio is the best for burning more calories for a longer period of time, low intensity does not.

Anyone can work their way into a combination of high and low intensity cardio workout routine. Try interval training that interjects spurts of high intensity exercise in with the low intensity ones. This is an awesome way to boost the fat burning going on within your body. Try intervals of walking/jogging/sprinting. But be careful to do this slowly and work your way up, to avoid injury or burnout.

Increased energy is one of the best benefits of cardio exercise. Starting your day with a bit of a cardio workout will energize you and get you off on the right foot for the day. You will have more energy throughout the day and it also makes you want to eat healthier too.

If you are new to exercise, take it easy and slowly work your way up to the high intensity work outs. You can easily over exert yourself if your body is not used to it. Go ahead and give it a shot, you will have tons more energy and will get your body in better shape too.