You would assume that people who exercise would burn fat, its just a matter of burning off those calories and bingo you’re back in shape.

Maybe not?

According to a study done by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found this isn’t always the case. In their study, on this subject they worked with 58 obese people who for 12 weeks completed aerobic training under supervision without changing their dieting habits.

On average the group lost 7 pounds weight and in some cases half that amount.

So what went wrong?

Another study from University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver may have the answers to this question.

In their study on athletes, lean people and obese people (both sedentary) found that all didn’t burn calories after they worked out. It was previously believed that after a workout an “after burn” accord where the metabolism stayed high for some time after working out so that fat continued to burn for several hours after training.

But this doesn’t appear to happen.

They found that people were only burning 200 -300 calories for half an hour of exercise. Which could easily be replaced by a high energy drink leaving them back in the same calorie situation they were in before they started.

But its not all bad news.

They found that if you work out at a lower intensity (for example walking) a higher percentage of fat is burned compared to a higher intensity workout. To get in this fat burning zone you should try to maintain a heart rate of between 105 and 134” beats per minute. Try to keep to the higher rate and you’ll burn more calories.

The authors of the report believe that although exercise might not burn as much calories as previously believed its something we all should do as its a great help in improving mood, relieving stress and helps to lower blood pressure.

So, the moral of the story is exercise it still great for fat burning BUT don’t spoil all your good work with an unhealthy treat afterwards. Chances are you haven’t burned enough calories off to stop in settling on your hips!

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Perhaps the question I hear asked the most is, “How do I burn calories fast.” While it would be great to give you a definite answer to this question I’m afraid there is no super fast way to burn a load of calories, it takes time.

But don’t be put off and leave despondent, here are some ways to increase your calorie burning efforts…

1 – To burn the most calories in any type of exercise you need to use exercises that use the quadriceps muscle, that big muscle at the top of the thigh. Due to the size of this muscle, any exercise that involves them burns up a lot of calories.

To get these muscles working you should include exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, lunges, sprinting, snatches into your workout to burn as much as you can. Or if the gym isn’t for you, get on your bike and get busy. Try to include as many up hill/inclines as you can, or select a gear that you find hard to push, this can also work get those large muscles working.

2 – One intense hour of rowing can yield anywhere from 800 – 1000 calories burned as this works the back muscles and chest. While not as big as the leg muscles they are the second large muscle group of the body.

3 – Jumping rope at a vigorous rate can get this high as well; however, it is much more demanding on your knees and ankles. This might not be ideal if you suffer from weight problems.

4 – High intensity interval training is also claimed to raise the amount of calories you burn. Here’s an example sprint for 45 seconds. Walk for 2 minutes, sprint for 45 seconds, walk for 2 minutes. Repeat this five times. If you do want a bit of variety you can do the same on an elliptical machine/cycling machine. The goal is to absolutely hit the wall and then recover and then do it over.  This training can be grueling, but you can reduce your length of time you have to exercise for to shorter amounts and still get the same results.

5 – Swimming is also a great exercise for high calorie burning, because it exercises every part of the body, your legs, arms, lungs, etc. Plus, but you’re exercising in water rather than air, the added resistance really adds to burning calories because you are constantly trying to maintain balance in the water and keeping afloat.

While it’s important to know how to increase your calorie burning its equally important to know your “Basal Metabolic Rate”, this simply tells you how many calories you burn a day. A lot of people talk about burning calories but don’t realize how many calories they should be eating daily.

You can use the BMR calculator over in the right hand column to work out yours now. Now that you have this number you’ll now know the limit you can safely eat each day to maintain your health without putting weight on.

While it might sound simple if you don’t overeat in the calories department you won’t have to burn them off later through sweat and tears.