how does your body burn fat?

seamus2a2

Heya guys. From Portugal here and getting fit. I have been struggling with a knee surgery since 2001 which kept me well sedentary and as a result plump. over the years i tried several activities that would allow me to drop weight, which would work, and then invariably the all too familiar pop on the knee would come and then plumpness again

when i was a kid i was very active, ran cross country, baseball, football, hockey.

so now 2 years ago i had my acl and meniscus surgery and now i have been able to be in the gym since last July! this is awesome. it was rough in the beginning but now i know the endorphin is back. getting antsy about going back to competitive team sports and so on, but for now still taking it easy and getting back onto my ideal weight.

so that's the long story long. now the short story. while recovering from ACL surgery i got to 104kgs at peak, and i am 1,72m. i dropped down to 100kgs with myfitnesspall

and then i went back to the gym. built up resistance on the elliptical (still afraid that the threadmill will be too rough on the knee, but not hurrying), got the weight machines on the rest of the body and am now at 72kgs.

so now i want to start tightening. i want to start burning more efficiently and building enough muscle to do so.
building muscle is easy (and hard work), but the burning part there's so much hearsay that I am lost. I found a simple article on the net and was wondering what you all have to say about it.

http://www.active.com/fitness/articles/how-does-your-body-burn-fat?page=1

i would really appreciate all comments.

oh yeah one thing. i am really not a fan of protein supplements, and while i would like to get toned i was thinking more like king leonidas big, not arnold big

also does the belly skin get taut again or do i have to knife it out?

mokaiba

doesnt burn it. it breaks it down into components when it needs to (caloric deficit, eg).

simple explanation:

fat = energy + air + liquid. body uses the energy. air leaves by mouth and the liquid leaves by urine.


everyone should aim for Hafthór Júlíus Björnsson big.

seamus2a2

thanks mokaiba, yeah the article doesn't break it down into the chemistry of it. i read that somewhere else as well, but the general sense of 3 burns or break downs as you say.

SergeantSausage

This is how.

TimothyFish

As the article says, you are burning calories all the time. Your increased weight didn't come from not burning calories, but rather it came from you eating more calories than you were burning sitting around. If you had reduced your intake while you couldn't be active, you would have maintained your weight or even lost weight during that time. Increased activity will result in you losing weight, as long as you don't increase your intake by too much.

seamus2a2

Seargent, i guess if you can understand that tricaboxylic acid cycle page then you could easily say if that site makes sense

thanks searge and tim.