Fitness success 20 minutes sufficient for active fat burning?

Long training with low intensity promotes fat burning
Who wants to lose weight, should boost his fat burning. The news agency "dpa" spoke with Caroline Werkmeister, medical director at the Competence Center for Sports and Movement Medicine at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf, about the right training.

Unfortunately 20 minutes are not enough. Only starting from this time training effects begin. (Image: Dudarev Mikhail - fotolia)

Fat loss starts after 20m minutes?
"No," says foreman. "There are different ways of producing energy, and they all run in parallel." However, the type of energy production depends on the intensity and duration of the load.

First, adenosine triphosphate, the carrier of immediate cell energy, plays the most important role. Most of the energy comes from short carbohydrates, says Werkmeister. It is burned only a little fat. Only with longer and less intense training, the fat and protein reserves are addressed.

Anyone who wants to lose weight should therefore opt for long activities at low intensity, such as endurance sports. Interval training, in which the low-intensity movement is briefly and repeatedly interrupted by energy-intensive phases, is particularly well suited to getting rid of excess kilos. Muscle mass, diet and stress level have a significant influence on the type and amount of fat burning, among other factors, so that general statements are to be regarded as a rough guide only.

In general, to lose weight, more energy must be burned than is supplied to the body in the form of food. Sustainable weight loss can be achieved through a healthy diet combined with regular exercise. (Ag)