Get Fit with these Fat Loss Life Hacks

Secrets to Fat Loss

 

If you want to know how to burn fat, pay close attention. It will save you time and get you far better results from your workouts! Just hopping on the exercise equipment and working in the described “fat burn zone,” the chart won’t guarantee you’re burning fat; the chart is an estimation based on studies and tests.

• Depending on the duration and intensity of the exercise, your body will rely on more carbohydrates (stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver) than fat for its fuel = fat loss

Your body burns bodyfat at night while sleeping and while at rest; at a lower rate based on energy usage.

Once exercise starts your body starts to utilize glycogen stores for quick energy. This doesn’t mean you want to sit vs exercise for fat loss. Exercise burns more calories, including fat, you definitely benefit from physical activity.

During your weight training workouts your body will burn the most calories between lifts or sets. EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) shows that energy usage (calorie burn) is increased for 24 hours with an increase in fat burn as well. Weight training studies show that there is a higher EPOC after weight training than most SS (steady state) physical activities.

Steady state (SS) exercise or Low Intensity steady state (LISS) would be any exercise that maintains the same rate of exertion over the duration of the exercise.You still have post exercise energy burn after a SS or LISS workout, it’s at a lower rate than a HIIT or weight training workout.

Lower intensity workouts tend to burn more fat than carbohydrate stores; while high endurance exercise burns more calories overall.

Walking is still a decent means of exercise and an excellent start to your fitness journey.

Once your body burns through its glycogen stores, it will then utilize fat stores. The body waits to use fat for energy as it is a longer process to convert to energy and isn’t immediately available like glycogen stores.

• Your body chooses different fuels during different situations. Because fats yield more calories and are slower burning as they are metabolized, they tend to be used over longer duration when compared to carbohydrates.

High Intensity Interval Training, HIIT exercise, helps burn more bodyfat overall as the explosive nature of the exercise tends to build more muscle.

HIIT weight training yields a very high energy usage and shows a greater energy usage both during and after the workout. While HIIT weight training burns more fat stores, this style of training wouldn’t allow your body to rest enough between sets to maximize load training or it isn’t used to PR your lifts.

Muscle helps burn bodyfat even while at rest (metabolic flexibility) as it takes energy to maintain muscle mass. Certain types of fitness training improves metabolic flexibility, typically the higher intensity or more muscle mass gain will have the best metabolic flexibility.

Women tend to burn more carb stores during rest and fat stores during exercise, finally women win one of the gender weight control wars. Men win the fat loss wars it seems.

• Your body’s first priority is to conserve its blood glucose and glycogen stores. As you become fitter your body will become more efficient at using fats for fuel while sparing your vital carbohydrate reserves.

Your liver stores approximately 400 calories or 100g of glycogen (stored carbohydrates) while muscle stores approximately 1400 – 2000 calories or 350 to 500g of glycogen. Muscle tissue can be converted to glycogen as well but it is a long process for the body and results in muscle loss.

HIIT training vs endurance training: HIIT not only burns more calories during the exercise session, HIIT burns 9 times more calories and helped the body develop enzymes that help facilitates fat burning over time.

• Someone who is totally unfit will fatigue sooner, one of the reasons being that their carbohydrate stores are more quickly dissolved and utilized. Fitter individuals can exercise much longer because they have developed the ability to use the slow burning fats as fuel, and therefore conserve their energy better.

• As the intensity of exercise increases, there is more reliance on carbohydrates for fuel. Typically, intensities greater than 70% of VO2 max (or maximum heart rate for our purposes) will use carbohydrates as the dominant fuel source.

One more via the Poliquin Group’s post, click for more: Eleven Myths about How the Body burns Fat

#1. Knowing where and how energy is stored in the body will improve fat loss results.

Your body has the following energy sources available to it, which it burns at different rates depending on the intensity of physical activity:

• Body fat provides roughly 30,000-100,000 calories in normal-weight people, depending on how much body fat you actually have. In obese people, the number is much higher.
• Muscle glycogen provides 1,400-2,000 calories or 350-500 grams of glycogen, which is enough for 90 minutes of endurance exercise. It is stored in muscle cells and used by those cells for energy.
• Liver glycogen provides about 400 calories or 100 grams of glycogen. It can be turned into glucose and used by the rest of the body, such as the brain and blood cells.
• There’s also muscle and tissue, which is made of amino acids and can be broken down to produce glucose. This is the not ideal because it leads to loss of lean mass.

I hope these tips help you in your journey to getting fit and healthy. Weight loss is maddening for all of us, myself included as it’s a constant battle it seems.