Understanding How the Body Burns Energy to Strip Fat
When most people say they want to lose weight, they really mean they want to lose fat. To understand how to strip fat off our body, we need to understand the physiological rules of how the body burns energy.
Here’s how your body burns energy, with no exceptions to this rule:
- 🍬 If you have sugar (glucose) in your blood, your body will always go to that energy source first. When sugar rises in your blood, your body secretes insulin. The primary role of insulin is to block any other form of energy utilization in the body. If insulin is high, you cannot burn fat. It’s physiologically impossible to burn fat in a high sugar environment.
- 🍠 The next source of energy is glycogen, which is stored sugar in your liver and muscles. You have a 20-minute reserve of glycogen in your body.
- 💪 After glycogen, your body can get energy from lean muscle or fat.
The Biggest Mistake in Trying to Lose Weight
Many people, especially women, make a big mistake when trying to lose weight. They may wake up fasted, have a cup of black coffee, and then do an intense workout for 55 minutes, 5 days a week, but still not lose a single pound. Here’s why:
- 🏃♀️ When you start your workout without any sugar in your bloodstream, you have a 20-minute reserve of glycogen.
- ⏰ 20 minutes into your workout, you’re out of energy, and your body needs energy now.
- 🍗 It takes 3 minutes to liquefy lean muscle, but 5 hours to turn fat into energy.
- 😰 So, your body starts burning your lean muscle for energy during the workout.
- 🔄 That night, you rebuild the muscle, only to break it down again in the next day’s workout, creating a cycle of muscle loss and gain without fat loss.
Interesting Facts About Body Fat and Weight Loss
- 📉 The number of fat cells in your body remains constant throughout your adult life, regardless of weight gain or loss. When you gain weight, your fat cells expand, and when you lose weight, they shrink.
- 🧠 Leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells, plays a crucial role in regulating appetite and metabolism. As you lose fat, leptin levels decrease, which can trigger hunger and slow down your metabolism, making it harder to maintain weight loss.
- 🏋️♀️ Resistance training (weightlifting) can help preserve lean muscle mass during weight loss, which is essential for maintaining a healthy metabolism and preventing the “skinny fat” look.
