FASTER Fat Loss: The Tortoise & The Hare Continued…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about The Tortoise and The Hare.

To cut a long story short the tortoise won the race, but the hare looked better in a bikini. My point being if you want to get in shape you should not exercise at a slow and steady intensity but work at faster more vigorous intervals of slightly more intense exercise interspersed with periods of rest.

My usual banter of ‘trust me I’m a personal trainer’ can only get me so far with you the avid reader so I’m back with a follow up and I’m bringing hard evidence…

To prove my point that fat loss is about intensity NOT duration I have found a brilliant research paper.

In somewhat of a landmark study Tremblay et al. (1994) compared endurance training (ET) with high-intensity intermittent-training (HIIT) similar to the sort you will find at bootcamp or during one of my PT sessions.

They compared a variety of different factors including energy expenditure, bodyweight and body-fat.

The endurance training group followed a 20-week program in which the participant maintained a heart rate of between 60-85% (or a comfortable pace to you or I) for between 30-45 minutes.

The HIIT group followed 15-week program in which the participant maintained a heart rate of in excess of 70% (or slightly less comfortable pace to you and I) for up to 30 minutes.

The researchers actually found no significant difference between the groups in weight when tested at the end of each program. However, the difference in terms of energy expenditure and body fat proved to be incredibly interesting.

To quote the researchers… “Despite the fact that the energy cost of the ET program was twice that of the HIIT program, it impact on subcutaneous adiposity was lower than the HIIT program” Pretty damning, don’t you think? But this was not all. The researchers went on to compare relative energy expenditure with fat loss and concluded that HIIT was NINE TIMES more efficient!

So what does this mean?

When corrected for energy costs, subjects working at a higher-intensity lost NINE TIMES more body fat!

It is for this reason that the hare looks leaner than the tortoise.

What does this mean for you?

In essence, to make best use of your time choose more vigorous interval based exercise rather than the slower steady stuff and you may not lose more weight, or burn more calories BUT you will burn more body fat.

Don’t believe me? Check out the research for yourself here.