If you're not an athlete and start doing short bursts of intense exercise like sprinting or HIIT, your body gets better at burning fat while you work out—after about a month, you’ll start seeing this effect, and it keeps improving a little bit each week after that.

If you're carrying extra weight, your body burns fat faster during short, intense workouts like sprinting or interval training than someone who's at a normal weight — like burning 3 times more fat per minute.

If you do short bursts of super-hard exercise like sprinting, you burn a tiny bit more fat during your workout than if you jog steadily — but the difference is so small it might not even matter in real life.

If you're overweight, doing short bursts of intense exercise like sprinting or HIIT helps your body burn fat better than it does for someone who's a normal weight—so these workouts might be especially good at fixing how your body struggles to switch between burning fat and sugar.

If you're not an athlete but want to burn more fat while working out, doing short bursts of intense exercise—like sprinting or pedaling hard—on a bike or treadmill can help, and it works better on a bike based on current research.

Whether you eat carbs, protein, or nothing before a hard cycling workout with short bursts of maximum effort, your power output stays the same — your body can still push hard regardless of what you ate beforehand.