Question on Carbs

Technically your ATP is burned first, followed by a combination of carbohydrate and fat depending on the exercise intensity.

IF your walking, you will burn very little fat.

As you increase exercise intensity, you rely on greater carbohydrate which inhibits the use of fat.

As for allowing more carbs it depends on your goals.

If you are aiming to perform better, then you want to have carbs post-exercise to stimulate glycogen (muscle carbohydrate) resynthesis. However, if your trying to lose weight, avoiding carbs for a couple of hours will actually promote even greater fat reliance and in turn loss.

So really its down to what your after, if you want to be a great sportsman, carb post-exercise is important, if you want to lose weight, dont up the carbs in response to exercise.

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Doctoral Researcher in Exercise Adaptation and Metabolism:

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Thank you. Well I've want to lose another 10 lbs or so, but also want to tone up. So kind of conflicting... what I try to do most days (days I don't weightlift) is elliptical interval training. So moderate pace for a minute and a half followed by 30 seconds of high intensity, and I do that for a half hour

Yes just remember that "toning" is really a false worse for :

Losing fat and/or gaining muscle.

The intervals sound great and you will "tone" doing them better than prolonged endurance exercise at a lower intensity.

I would still avoid eating carbs back personally, but I would focus on adequate 24hr protein content (possible with special focus on immediate hours after exercise if you can e.g. whey supplement with high leucine content). This will make sure you keep losing weight and help build muscle mass (again, toning).

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Doctoral Researcher in Exercise Adaptation and Metabolism:

Follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Michael300891)