Quote Originally Posted by xaznstylegrlx View Post
Eat a balanced diet, stay away from sodas and juices, do cardio, but stay below your Anaerobic Threshold so that you burn fat calories and not sugar/carb. Strength training also helps.
Correct, in theory.

You will burn a higher % of carbohydrates vs. fat as fuel as you increase intensity and near or surpass your lactate threshold, but if you do the math on the total # of calories burned: you burn more fat calories at a higher intensity (and weight loss comes from Net caloric balance, no matter the type of fuel used)

BTW: BMI is useless. All health professionals will admit to this fact, but it is used in general because it is the easiest way to statistically analyze a large group of people. Measuring body fat % through hydrostatic weighing or DEXA (or even skinfold calipers) is the best way to determine the "status" of your health as it relates to your body composition, but on a large scale it is very time consuming and very cost prohibitive.

FWIW my BMI is 27.7 (overweight) but I am 8% body fat and in excellent shape. BMI does not take lean tissue into account whatsoever. It's simply height (meters squares)/weight (kilograms squared)