TreadMill - Fatloss or Cardio Zone?

[sakbar]

Hi folks,

I do treadmill about 30 minutes, every alternate day. Presently, I am on a cut trying to cut down the flab around my stomach.


While experimenting the different options available on the treadmill I noticed that the inbuilt "Fat Loss Program" is very convenient and puts hardly any stress at all; whereas the inbuilt "Cardio Program" helps elevate the Heart Rate significantly, really leaving me gasping for breath at the end of it.

Also, the calories burnt are much more in the Cardio program than the Fat Loss Program, given the same time duration.

Which is the ideal one then?

Thanks

 

[NeilPearson]

Since weight loss is just a function of burning more calories through the day than you eat, whichever one burns more calories will be more effective.

That said, neither is needed for fat loss. Losing weight is mostly diet

 

[Bradicallyman]

The fat burning zone is a bunch of BS. Only thing needed to lose weight is a caloric deficit and to retain muscle, weight lifting is added in. As for which one is ideal, well that depends on your diet. Ideally you want to be in a deficit with your diet alone but if you are using cardio to do get into a deficit, then I would go for the one that burns the most calories. I just went on a 12 week cut and did cardio about 3-4 times total and lost about 25 pounds, mostly fat since my strength stayed the same.

 

[I Are Baboon]

I just hop on the thing and go. I don't pay much attention to the different zones. I pay more attention to my exertion level.

 

[jimmachak.com]

Depends on your goal and diet

It really depends on your overall goal and your diet. For example, if weight loss is your goal with no emphasis on keeping every ounce of lean muscle then intense cardio is the way to go regardless of your diet and sleep (although your diet, even with no regard to keeping lean muscle, will have an effect on this more than any form of cardio).

However if you want to keep as much muscle as possible then everything changes depending on your diet and sleep. Here low intensity cardio is advised MOST (not all) of the time (as sometimes even in precontest training intense cardio is advised to shock the body and get leaner).

So it really depends on your overall goal (if you compete, how serious your diet is, etc.) and how serious you are about keeping lean muscle.