Is it true: Caffeine makes you burn fat befoe your sugars?

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A friend told me yesterday that cafeine changes the way your system burns energy. When exercising, if you have caffeine, the caffeine will make your body burn fat stores first, rather than sugars.

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  • PercivalHackworth
    PercivalHackworth Posts: 1,437 Member
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    Completely wrong. The usage of one nutrient over one another (energy pathways) has nothing to do with what you eat, it depends on the type of activity you are having. Aerobic efforts tend to use fat (FFA's) over glucose for ATP production.
    A fasted state makes the usage from triglycerides even bigger.

    What caffeine does is simply higher the metabolism (slightly) since it's a thermogenic
  • littlemegzz
    littlemegzz Posts: 292 Member
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    kool, thanks for the quick reply. I was so curious if he was right or not. If he was, I'm sure I would have read about it more on here. Btw, quick other question for you then, I played a whole heap of netball today. It was lots of running and agility work. I was all hot and sweaty afterwards and stuff. What zone would you guess that puts me into? Aerobic or that Anerobic thingy-majigger?
  • PercivalHackworth
    PercivalHackworth Posts: 1,437 Member
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    The two first pathways don't last long . The ATCP anaerobic (phosphate system) lasts around 10 seconds, then the glycolysis a couple of minutes, just after you switch to the aerobic phase :-)

    Now the usage of one nutrient over one another depends of several factors, but in most cases, it's a mix between cho + fats for the ATP production