Confused about cardio workouts

[Noodles]

Hi Guys,
I've been a little confused about cardio workouts. I Obviously want to get the most out of my workouts and do the best workout i can in order to really help my weight loss. So a little while ago i got myself a heart rate monitior. That way i can keep track of how many calories i'm burning and make sure i stay in the fat buring zone. The fat buring zone being where i need to be to get the best results. But now i'm confussed, someone else told me to workout at a highter heart rate - like they do on the biggest loser! I was looking for some info on this and this is what i've found:

The Ugly Truth

The body does burn a higher percentage of calories from fat in the 'fat burning zone' or at lower intensities. But, at higher intensities, you burn a greater number of overall calories which is what you should be concerned about when trying to lose weight. The chart below details the fat calories expended by a 130-pound woman during cardio exercise:

Low Intensity 60-65% MHR High Intensity - 80-85% MHR
Total Calories expended per min. 4.86 6.86
Fat Calories expended per min. 2.43 2.7
Total Calories expended in 30 min. 146 206
Total Fat calories expended in 30 min. 73 82
Percentage of fat calories burned 50% 39.85%

This suggests that working out at a higher intensity will get better results as over a 30 min period more total calories and fat calories have been burnt even though the % is lower!

Please let me know what you all think.

Cheers
Nic

[Missy]

I personally think the target heart rate zone is what to aim for, keeping your heart around 130-140 for the duration of your cardio. Reason being, if you start doing higher intensity cardio, I think you start to burn off the muscle and that's not what you want, you want to target the fat.