Fat Burning Setting on the Elliptical

People tend to exercise in the low-intensity “fat-burning” setting on ellipticals under the impression that they will burn more fat.  There is some truth to this, however, the total amount of calories you burn is more important than which calories are burned.
Fat burning settings are designed to get people to an aerobic zone where they are relying on mostly fats to be burned.  It is suggested that you keep your heart rate lower during this program so you burn more percentage of calories from fat than from carbs.  However, if you increase your intensity, you may burn more total calories therefore increasing your total fat calories burned.
Confused?  Here’s an example: Lets say you workout for 45 minutes.  During the fat burning setting, you may burn a total of 300 calories.  50% of those calories may be from fat, so the total burn would be 150 fat calories.  Now during a higher intensity setting, you may burn 500 calories, but only 40% are from fat.  You still burn more fat because 200 calories burned are fat calories.
So what is the best way to maximize fat burning?  Start by performing higher intensity exercises.  Interval training is where you perform really high intensity exercises for very short bursts.  Interval training is more effective at burning fat and calories and I think it’s also more fun.