What should I do to burn fat without burning muscle?

[markshark]

I personally think if you want to burn fat and save muscle, DO SPRINTS!!!. I don’t care what body type you have, go to a football field and if you are in decent shape start at one end zone and sprint as fast as you can to the other end. You will be so dead after 2 or 3 if you have never done sprints.

When I say sprints I mean you are basically accelerating the entire time, your fastest point will be when you cross the endpoint. This is very difficult to really do because it is so grueling in my opinion. I played football in college and the most ripped of my teammates were always the running backs and they were always doing sprints.

Start with 100-yard sprints and if you have a decent diet you will see your legs get bigger and stronger and the fat will melt off.

Good luck

i used to do sprints 100 yards up, 100 yards back, wait for 30 seconds, then do it again as fast as you can. it is tough shit but if you do it hard enough you feel so euphoric at the end of it. dont know about what this does in relation to fat burning and muscle maintenance as opposed to lighter and longer duration cardio, i was doing this with a high-rep lifting program and a lot of running.

 

[RDJ]

An interesting subject for you fat burners: Paleolithic diet. If you seem unable to lose fat you may be slightly insulin resistant, which may be a result of your diet (most cardio people have high carb diets, insulin resistance is a result of insulin spikes after intake of grains, potatoes, etc).

An interesting read IMHO, see for yourself.

 

[musclebosun]

can't we all just get along? I think everyone should remember that all training is not an exact science. What works for one person will not always work for another.

 

[Synpax]

First, what I said back then doesn't contradict what I am saying now - I said run as far as you can as fast as you can - and that me, I personally do intervals or fartlek because that was more in tune with my goal - which is a pretty good way to increase the amount of time you can stay in fat burning mode while also getting some speed work done.

Second, this isn't a chat room. There are boards where you can make all kinds of assertions and speculate - this isn't one of them. This is a place where people with serious goals go to get solid advice on matters that, if they are mis-informed, could result in injury.

So if I could, I would probably delete a lot of old threads and posts here where someone seeking advice is getting bad advice. I'd even delete/sharpen the post that is being quoted.

I'm planning to put a FAQ up when I have the time to (my own business has been beating me down lately, time-wise.) Then anyone else with some serious knowledge can peer review it and whenever we get one of these repeat questions we hear so often, we can refer them to that.

 

[tgriff]

I think everyone should remember that all training is not an exact science. What works for one person will not always work for another.

Wow finally someone said it...

 

[kpurohit]

I think there has been some mixed advice about all this stuff. You can do cardio at a moderate intensity for longer duration say(40min to 60min) intially, and watch the response. If you feel that its too much, take a day off to reverse the look and load some carbs. Again repeat. I would not suggest doing cardio in this fashion for more than 3 days at a go. Take a day off. You'll feel much energized and motivated. That should work.
It also depends on what kinda diet you are on now. If you can be that smart guy, then don't consume any sort of carbs within an hour of doing the cardio. To overcome soreness later, I have found that SOYA shakes can greatly help (I would prefer this if I have the soy) or adding in a little carb to my whey helps. I hope that should help. (Note:Sometimes even the most experienced can get confused due to all the fuss!)

 

[nsashbl01]

Wow finally someone said it...

I'll agree we all respond differently to different training. I am a firm believer that HIIT cardio is far more effective at burning and keeping fat off with less time wasted. I have seen many examples of this in my life. My gf fought me on this for years and ran 40+ miles per week. Now she does HIIT running 2x per week for 20-25 minutes. She is less than 8%bf year round since. There's pics in my gallery.

 

[gjohnson5]

can't we all just get along? I think everyone should remember that all training is not an exact science. What works for one person will not always work for another.

I've never heard of anyone gaining weight on a caloric deficit... Have you?

 

[gjohnson5]

I think if you start with diet and calories then all will fall into place.

 

[aps1087]

Synpax...

maybe we should all just lay on the couch all day to burn fat since close to 100% of our calories burned would be fat then. If you think that the amount of energy and what types of energy burned during exercise is what matters, you are mistaken. Training may take an hour of your day, what about the other 23? It comes to total calories burned and only that matters in relation to your BMR. If you aren't burning more calories than you are eating, you aren't going to lose weight. Nothing comes easy. Eat well and bust your ass training.

Now, there are places for both sprinting and running at 75-85%. Running the latter helps train your body to burn more fat DURING exercise. But like I said, that's only maybe an hour out of your day. What about the other 23? Sprinting burns more calories, and in the end, that is what matters most when it comes to fat loss.