Research

Energy balance

Endurance training increases maximal fat oxidation (MFO) rates and shifts the intensity at which MFO occurs to higher workloads by upregulating cellular transport proteins (CD36, CPT-1) and mitochondrial enzymes (HAD, Citrate Synthase).

If you want your body to become more efficient at burning fat, commit to long-duration endurance training (over 2 hours per session) consistently over months or years. This builds the cellular machinery (enzymes and transporters) needed to oxidize fat at higher intensities, allowing you to burn more fat per minute during exercise.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Endurance training, specifically long duration (>2 h) facilitate adaptations that alter both the origin of FAs and FAox rate... The training status effect on MFO further applies to athletic populations... MFO was elevated for the highly trained subjects... mitochondrial enzymes citrate synthase and HAD were found to be significantly increased (49% and 35%) in highly trained vs. moderately trained participants respectively
Troy Purdom et al. · Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · 2018

Why this rating

Cited multiple studies showing consistent increases in MFO and enzyme activity with training.

Source

Understanding the factors that effect maximal fat oxidation

Troy Purdom et al. · Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · 2018

DOI 10.1186/s12970-018-0207-1

narrative_reviewCited 235×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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