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By Ryan Lee

As I've been writing the ongoing series for Mercola.com, I've received quite a few emails from confused people.

Here's the most common question:

"Are you telling me I can burn MORE fat with high intensity 'sprint-type' training than distance running? I thought when you exercise at a slower pace it's more in the fat-burning zone?"

I've gotta tell you that's one of the biggest myths in fitness. Here's the truth:

Yes, you will burn a larger percentage of fat storage at a lower intensity, however you will still burn a larger number of total fat with high-intensity workouts.

Here's a simplified example:

Let's say you jog at a pace that burns 30% of your calories as fat. If you walk for 30 minutes you might burn around 100 calories. So that comes to a total of 30 fat calories (100 x 30%).

Now, instead of walking for 30 minutes, let's say you did interval sprinting for that same amount of time. While you might only have 20% of your calories burned from fat, you will have burned about 700 total calories. That still comes to 140 fat calories (700 x 20%).

Here's another way to look at it.

If the slower you go, the higher percentage of calories burned is from fat, than you're burning the highest percentage of fat calories when you are sleeping. But it's really the total amount of calories burned that matters most!

Bottom line: if you want to burn more fat, start increasing your intensity with interval training.

Stay tuned for the next part in my ongoing series ...

Ryan Lee is a fitness expert who's helped over 100,000 people get fit through his training programs, workshops, coaching and online training. He's the founder of the Quatro Fitness: 'The World's Fastest Workout' program.