Exercise to burn fat instead of calories?

fitandfortyish

So the logic here is if the body doesn't have readily available energy it will burn up stored fat to fuel your exercise.

People who are lean already, don't have much stored fats and can run into trouble because the body will start to break down muscle (protein) to fuel itself. Which is why you will see posts about protein balance etc.

And that's exactly why you shouldn't just look at the narrow window of the workout, but the whole day effect.

If you had a bite to eat to allow you to do a more intense workout, you'd burn more carbs from your muscle and liver stores.
After your next meal those will be replenished first, along with using that food for energy right then.

Guess what happens if you have a lot of carb stores to refill? Blood sugar drops back to normal faster than if you ate a normal bigger meal, and you are back in to fat burning mode faster until your next meal.

That's where the real fat burning comes in - the after effects.

Like it's mentioned with lifting. Same thing in a diet, you store the less than normal carbs faster, return to fat burning mode faster. And now your body is repairing the muscles from your workout, which elevates metabolism to do so.

So you're saying eat something soon after working out after fasting? Just want to make sure I'm doing this right (I've plateau'd and this may be why)

Siansonea

It's not complicated. Eat less. Period. That's all you have to do.

heybales

So you're saying eat something soon after working out after fasting? Just want to make sure I'm doing this right (I've plateau'd and this may be why)

If the workout was gentle enough and didn't take that much out of you, you don't need to eat if not hungry until your next meal.
Personal preference. Whenever you eat post workout, if you include carbs, they'll refill all the stores, blood sugar drops, insulin is removed, fat burning is turned back on.

Just keep in mind some types of workouts can make you feel not hungry, but using your brain you know full well you better eat, or the next meal could be a disaster for adherence. Or you could be shaky and weak and not feel hungry. In which case, eat a snack or meal.

Also, if training for endurance, and will be doing another session today or tomorrow again, carbs within 30 min are taken up and stored faster. Actually carbs to protein ratio 4:1 was found to cause best uptake.

Plateau is at least 4 weeks with no change to weight or many measurements.
If no weight change but measurement dropped you burned fat, then body is comfortable making improvements, and you are likely eating more than you think or burning less than you think - in other words eating at maintenance.
If no improvements, body has likely adapted and suppressed your system because too extreme a deficit for too long, and you are still eating at maintenance, but for bad reasons.

fitandfortyish

So you're saying eat something soon after working out after fasting? Just want to make sure I'm doing this right (I've plateau'd and this may be why)

Plateau is at least 4 weeks with no change to weight or many measurements.
If no weight change but measurement dropped you burned fat, then body is comfortable making improvements, and you are likely eating more than you think or burning less than you think - in other words eating at maintenance.
If no improvements, body has likely adapted and suppressed your system because too extreme a deficit for too long, and you are still eating at maintenance, but for bad reasons.

I'm not weighing myself -- I'm cool at 129lbs but could stand to drop a percent or two of body fat. Increased protein, decreased carbs and stayed at same calororic intake. Do HIIT cardio alternating with steady state (2 days per week steady state, 2 days HIIT) all fasted and added resistance training 5 days a week when i can squeeze it in, but my measurements aren't changing as expected--this month i want to see a quarter inch drop off my waist measurement...been stuck for a month at 28 inches....

richardheath

You say you've plateaued, and yet you are not weighing yourself... is it just the inches not coming off?

Thing is, the last few % body fat are usually quite hard to get rid of. You need to be in quite a small deficit, hitting your protein macro, and just give it time.

fitandfortyish

Yes, just inches not coming off now....I'll stick to it--see what happens. May see abs yet.

heybales

To see the best body changes - you do NOT want to be in a deficit.

Now at this point, sounds like you are not - but for bad reasons. Body isn't going to make improvements that require more energy usage when it already thinks it's not getting enough for what you do. I'm going to suggest that is the issue.

I'd also not do the HIIT fasted, you likely aren't hitting (ha!) the hard interval as hard as you can.

There's a difference between it feels tough because you are tired, and it feels tough because it was an overload to your muscles.

HIIT is great fat-burning routine compared to steady-state for cardio folks that don't want to lift - because it's as close to lifting as you'll get with cardio.
All out push anaerobically, rest, repeat. Just like lifting.

If you have the time, and not training for an event that needs sport specific muscle improvement - skip the HIIT and hit the weights.

And slowly increase your calories, 100 daily for a week at a time.

If truly eating above maintenance with 100 calories - it would take 5 weeks to gain 1 pound, slowly.
Therefore if you gain fast water weight - you just topped off glycogen stores with water, and were not eating at true potential maintenance.
Of course if you gain nothing, you were not eating at potential maintenance either.

ninerbuff

Train intense to burn calories and increase your RMR. Here's the kicker: the body burns MORE FAT at rest vs exercising. At rest the body burns 100% fat. That includes when you're sleeping too, which is why it's important to get enough sleep.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

EpsilonGamma

Ok, the guy who said it is a myth hasn't really even given you any information.

He probably needs to read up on what Intermittent fasting is.

Essentially, exercise before breakfast is good. I'm not saying it converts every available energy from fats, but yes, it does use some of the fat.

However, in saying that, it is very important that your calorie intake is in a deficit (less than what you expend in energy).

I love training fasted.

Azdak

It doesn't matter what time of day you work out, or what you eat or don't eat before a workout, the results are exactly the same. Sorry. But if morning workouts work for you, there's no reason to stop doing them.

There is some credible studies out there (lean gains, eat-stop-eat, Rusty Moore) who claim working out "fasted" -- min 4 hours since you last ate that seem to show better fat burning when doing HIIT...If anyone is interested in giving it a try to see if it works for you.

One area of confusion is that in the more extreme situations --e.g. Competitive bodybuilders preparing for a show -- fasted cardio might be of some benefit, but that's only because at extremely low levels of body fat, mobilizing fat stores becomes a primary challenge. As so often happens, techniques that might be of benefit to the elites are erroneously applied to the general population.

For the other 99% of us, there is no benefit to fasted cardio and in fact there is a greater chance of a negative effect rather than a positive effect. Those who keep pushing this idea are just not familiar with the research.

Azdak

A calorie is a unit of energy.

Fat is a substance which the body can convert into energy, at approximately 3500 calories per pound.

I am confused.

I'm not a huge expert but tend to prefer working out fasted so I'll try to explain some of it for you--hopefully if I screw up a detail someone will correct me...

Yes, what you say is right--at some level when you exercise really shouldn't matter because you are burning the same amount of calories at 8am as you would at 8pm. A calorie, is a calorie afterall. Working out fasted ---first thing in the morning after not eating since dinner the night before, or 4 hours after your last meal in the afternoon, forces your body to "take" energy from fat.

You may have read on this board that foods, especially carbs, are energy. When you body doesn't use up all available energy, it stores it as fat. Conversely, if you just eat something and go work out, your body will grab that energy first and use it, because your body doesn't need to 'pull' energy from it's stored resources.

So the logic here is if the body doesn't have readily available energy it will burn up stored fat to fuel your exercise.

People who are lean already, don't have much stored fats and can run into trouble because the body will start to break down muscle (protein) to fuel itself. Which is why you will see posts about protein balance etc.

At the end of the day, calories burned are calories burned like you say--and you will lose weight for sure. But if you body is pulling from its fat reserves to fuel -- then a person *should* see a decrease in their overall body fat %---keep in mind that you must not put an excessive amount of carb back into your system for the rest of the day, or you just end up putting back what you took out.

I want to add here that I DO NOT advocate low carbs diets for myself. I love me my carbs, I just keep my carb intake at only 10% of my daily calorie intake.

Did I make that more confusing ... or less??

It's a nice explanation, except that it is wrong. The fuel mixture that one utilizes during exercise is determined primarily by exercise intensity and secondarily by duration (which is also related to intensity since one must lower intensity to increase duration).

You can't "trick" the body into burning more fat. If you are going to exercise at a certain intensity, you will need to get a certain % of the energy from carbs. If one is truly "glycogen depleted" (unusual), the body cannot just "switch" to fat. If you don't have the glycogen, you just can't do the exercise. Ever see marathoners "hitting the wall"? That's a "fat burning" workout. Fat oxidation is slower than carbohydrate, which limits the rate at which energy can be produced. If one is truly dependent on "fat burning", one is limited in intensity to about 60% of VO2 max.

There are a couple of huge misconceptions that many people have about this topic: one, we have a lot more stored glycogen that people realize, even in a so-called "fasted" state and two! we burn a lot less energy during exercise than most people think. The reason so many people can exercise comfortably in a "fasted" state is that they still have plenty of fuel on board for the average workouts that most people do.

But even all that is just trivia. The real bottom line about fat-burning workouts or fasted cardio, the thing that makes all of this irrelevant is:

Whatever percentage of fat you burn during a workout has NO effect on 24 hour fat oxidation or stored body fat. If you burn more fat during a workout, you burn less the rest of the day -- and vice versa. At the end of 24 hours there is no difference.

So if one wants to work out fasted, they should work out fasted. If not, don't. If you work out fasted and have trouble finishing or maintaining intensity, eat 75-125 cal snack 10-15 min before the workout.

fitandfortyish

There is some great information here...thanks everyone. I will try to push my calories up and see what happens.

A curious fact about my HIIT however--and it could be attributed to other factors...my times decrease and wattage is increasing--managing to take a few seconds off or row further. Granted my butt is stronger as are my shoulders from doing squats and bench presses so I could be gaining power there instead of stamina.

Regardless, I think I will incorporate some of everyone's suggestions and see what comes of it!

Thanks -- and sorry, I think I sort of hijacked this thread from the OP