by Richard Insley

Created on: January 11, 2010   Last Updated: January 13, 2010

Fat Burning

There is always a great deal of confusion when it comes to burning fat and
we get asked a lot of questions about it, when, how, why? There are a lot of old wife’s tales about when you burn fat, starving yourself, exercising on an empty stomach, not eating after exercise etc, etc.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is body fat? Well contrary to popular belief it is not the fat you

ate, some of that fat can be stored, but also depending on which sort of fat
it is can be deposited in your arteries too.

Body fat is stored energy, whether metabolised from carbohydrates,
proteins, fat or alcohol, it is your bodies gas tank. To reduce the amount
in the tank you need to use it up.

I just mentioned the 3 macro nutrients (and alcohol) that we get energy
from, carbs, proteins and fats, so to give you an analogy of their
properties for being burnt in the body, I will use some well known fuels as
comparisons.

So we will start with simple carbs, say sugars, white flours etc and we
will call these paper, secondly we have complex crabs, grains, potatoes
etc and we will call these card board, next comes protein, meats, eggs,
nuts and we will call these wood and finally we have body fat which we
will call coal.

We now have the 4 flammable materials that represent our food intake and
fat store. If we put a match to each what happens? The paper which was
sugars bursts in to flame and is gone in a few seconds, the card board
which was complex carbs burns, but takes a little longer and gets hotter,
the wood which was the protein takes longer to ignite and burns longer
still and the coal which represents our body fat takes longer again and
burns more slowly and gives off heat for hours.

The body does the same with your foods, it will use the easiest energy
source to metabolise first, so simple carbs (easiest), complex carbs
(next), proteins (next) and body fats last. I am over simplifying it a
little because the body will use all 4 at once, but the simple and complex
carbs will be used first. So if you walk, run, cycle , weight train etc
your body can metabolise carbs very quickly to make the energy which it
needs, it takes too long and is a more difficult process to metabolise
protein and body fat, so they are used more sparingly.

I hear you saying, “But surely if I have an empty stomach and exercise
then I will burn fat because there is nothing else to use?”  Sorry no,
with an empty stomach your body will use up glycogen (sugar) which is
already stored

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