Burn Baby, Burn
So, what's the difference between burning "fat as fuel," or burning "fat for weight loss?" 🤔
Seems like they should be one and the same, right? Well, it's not that simple (it never is 🤪). Lemme 'splain...
If your metabolism is healthy and flexible, your lower intensity activity and endurance bouts are mostly fueled by fatty acids! Metabolizing fat for fuel is a slow, but efficient process, and can last for a long time with little cost.
Slow exercise however, is not necessarily the most efficient way to lose fat off your body, but... why not?? Mobilizing fat for fuel is a long process, and since fats can fuel you for a looong time, it takes quite a while to "burn" down the immediate stores within the blood, and tap into your body’s endless supply stored within the adipose tissue. Not an efficient way to “burn fat OFF your body.”
When exercising more intensly, you need energy at a faster rate, so your body turns to carbohydrates (sugars) for fuel instead of fats. However, your body can only store a limited amount of carbohydrates, much more limited than fats, AND you are now creating a byproduct which your body needs to manage. All of this creates a cost which requires energy to recover back to baseline (homeostasis), which means… an elevated metabolism to replenish oxygen, clear byproduts, and replenish glycogen lost (carbohydrates). Through this elevated metabolism we can lose fat “from the body,” IF we don’t have an overabundance of fuel coming in.
So, now you might be thinking, sweet! I’ll just workout really intensely 6 days a week, in a fasted state, see endless weight loss, and be shredded forever! Aha, but the body is smarter than you may think, and is wired for two things: reproduction and survival. Read on…
Intense exercise, a.k.a. “eustress” (good stress!), is great for your health, up to a point. Good stress can quickly turn into “distress” when recovery is diminished. Recovery can be diminished by too many intense exercise bouts in a row, and lifestyle factors like poor sleep, a fight with your spouse, crappy food choices or not enough food, injury, inflammation, the list goes on.
We’re not going to get into the weeds on how stress affects the body in this post, but just know that if you are constantly under-recovering, your workouts will slowly diminish in QUALITY as well, and now you are just spinning on the proverbial hampster wheel, never recovering enough to make progress but also not able to perform well enough to create change. And the body will react to this sustained level of stress by throwing on the brakes because, well, reproduction and survival.
All of this leads us to the question, what DO you do to lose fat off your body?
Certainly, intense bouts of hard exercise are key! But quality bouts will get you farther, so do them rested, well-fed and keep them to a reasonable amount of time.
Also keep the easier days with some longer, slower distance (unless you only have a few hours a week to train, then stick to intensity for now)
Allow a full rest day for complete recovery so you can come back stronger and work harder, get ample sleep and manage other stress in your life.
Strength training is key for muscle glycogen synthesis, an overall healthy metabolism, and the strength to work harder and longer, so don’t skimp! However when it comes to strictly losing fat, intense bouts of cardio will get you farther.
Eating less than you are burning is ultimately the key ingredient (no pun intended) BUT the time to eat less is NOT around your workouts. Fuel your workouts for optimum performance, and cut calories at the end point of your day, the further you get from your training.
Lastly, daily organized exercise is only part of the metabolism puzzle… your daily MOVEMENT on top of your exercise bouts is uber imporant for fat loss. Aim for 2500 more steps per day than you currently are getting!
