How Many Calories Do You Need To Burn?

By Craig Ballantyne
[Weight Loss]
Find out the truth about how many calories you need to burn for fat loss.  Craig Ballantyne lets you in on the numbers.
If you depend on classic aerobic cardio for weight loss, you probably spend 30 minutes on a machine trying to burn a set number of calories.  But does that work?  Does burning 500 calories per day cause you to lose one pound of fat per week?

Well, according to science, it should.  But if it did, you probably wouldn't still be reading this article.  Here is some information about how burning calories relates to weight loss.

Calorie Counting

Myth:  You need to burn 500 calories each workout to lose fat.

That’s the myth, but here’s the truth.  Possibly one of the worst inventions for fat loss was the calorie counting monitor on treadmills, elliptical trainers and stair machines.

Because of these, millions of men and women now obsess about the number of calories burned per session.  You've probably been one of those people, watching it creep up ever so slowly during a slow cardio session.  All the while knowing that you can wipe out a 30-minute, 300-calorie treadmill session with one fell swoop of a Krispy Kreme.

Too many people are brainwashed into thinking that if they don't burn 300 to 500 calories per session, they won't lose fat.  After all, that is what you've been told time and time again by fitness magazines.

Depending On Cardio

The problems with this approach to fat loss are numerous.  First off, it's difficult to say if the calorie counters are even accurate.  A story on CBS news showed that cardio machines can overestimate calorie burning by up to 20 per cent.

Next, depending on slow cardio for advanced fat loss is relatively useless and, at the very least, inefficient.  It takes a long time for you to burn a lot of calories and one study showed that men who only used cardio training for weight loss ended up with a reduced resting metabolism.  You are basically undoing the calorie burning by depending only on cardio.  On the other hand, men in the same study that used strength training didn't suffer a reduced metabolic rate.  So clearly you need resistance training in your fitness program.

What is the solution to burning fat in a faster, more efficient way?  The answer is to use strength and interval training to burn fewer calories in less exercise time, but with a more intense form of exercise.
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