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It’s true that when you do more exercise on a regular basis and stick to the same way of eating or improve it slightly, you will burn fat and lose weight, so running a 5k to burn fat is a sound principle.

Depending on the length and difficulty of your workout, your body will usually use carbohydrates (stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver) and fat as its fuel source. And from this, your body will select a different ratio of these fuels for various types of exercise.

Fat contains more calories per gram (9kcal) than carbohydrates (4kcal) and takes longer to convert to energy so they tend to be used for anything that is slower in nature and over longer durations. As you improve your fitness levels, you will become more of a fat burning machine, whilst preserving more of your glycogen stores…You will burn more fat.

When exercise becomes harder the body uses a much higher percentage of glycogen and less fat, although this doesn’t mean that training at higher intensities won’t burn fat. There is a big misunderstanding about this however. Because running at a lower intensity will rely on the use of more fat than glycogen, therefore won’t this mean that to burn fat at its highest rate you need to run at a slower pace and for longer?

Well, when we talk about burning fat we’re basically talking about using up and burning off more calories than we are eating and taking in. When we exercise, the level of intensity we work at will also dictate the amount of calories we burn as well as where these calories come from, so the higher the level of intensity, the more calories will be used as fuel. Basically speaking, a greater percentage of calories from carbohydrates but also more overall fat calories.

So the secret to running a 5k to burn fat is to do a combination of both slow and steady training and shorter but higher intensity sessions to get the best improvements in fitness but also to burn off more fat.

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Source by Jago T Holmes