Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric3237
Muscle is the only tissue in the body to burn fat. More muscle burns more fat. A larger muscle would burn more fat during any activity than a smaller one. The more efficient your body becomes at utilizing fat the less muscle it will need to do so. There is nothing muscle preserving in long duration cardio. It just doesn't work that way. Preserving muscle is more about nutrition (like the post workout meal Dave mentioned) and resistance exercise. Your body will not look at the fat on your frame and say, "ok, I have to use all this up before I can touch the muscle."
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Interesting stuff. Here's what my research shows, you tell me where the hole are. I'm not going to cite sources here because I think that most of this is inline with mainstream medical texts.
1 - your body has 3 basic sources for energy - fats, protein and glycogen
2 - ideally, your body wants to burn fat because it's highly efficient with 9 calories per gram (recall that a calorie is a unit of heat/energy)
3 - The problem with fat usage is that it's stored "deep" in the body. You can't access it quickly - it takes your body time to be able to use it.
4 - During high-intensity exercise your body is not getting enough oxygen and time to get to use fat, therefore it mostly relies on glycogen and, ultimately, protein for energy.
5 - My understanding is that LIT vs HIT have directly inverse sources of energy. LIT uses a mix of 80% fat and 20% glycogen for energy, HIT uses 80% glycogen, 20% fat. This is evidenced by how you feel during HIT - the heavy burning feeling in your muscles is lactic acid, which is a by-product of burning glycogen. The cramps you feel are the byproduct of your liver giving up the stored glycogen.
So, once again, my goal is to stay within the fat-burning zone and burn fat as my main energy source. Yes, I realize that I will be giving up some muscle mass in the process, but removing the fat is my main concern here.
What do you think?