When I was privileged enough to have a gym membership, I noticed something about some of the cardio machines, like the bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills: according to the different programs you can use on the machine for your workout, many of them indicated that to burn fat, your heart rate needed to plateau at a certain mid-range level. If it passed a certain rate, then you'd be doing cardio, creating muscle, and therefore would not be burning off fat. At least that was the old way of doing workouts. Now (according to my Jillian Michaels ridiculously intense dvd), that belief about maintaining a mid-range heart rate to burn fat "is a dinosaur." According to Ms. Michaels (and I'm inclined to believe her based on how buff she is), kicking up the heart rate to a high level with intense exercise will certainly burn fat, not just produce muscle under a layer of existing fat. Of course, one's diet plays a huge role in all of this. You can't expect to get fit if you're exercising your head off and eating an unbalanced diet. Clearly a combination of a balanced diet, especially rich in fruits and vegetables, and exercise is necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle and even get fit in the process.
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