Burning fat or muscle?

I am not 100% on this but this is my understanding of what happens...

When your body feels "starved" or you go too long without eating (i.e. you consume 900 in one sitting instead of spacing it out to eat every 3 hours) your body will feel starved it will store fats and eat muscle... or something like that I found this article online that might help you I copied and pasted it bellow so not plagiarizing lol

http://optimalbodyweight.com/qa/weight-loss-tips/body/starvation-mode-weight-loss


Question: I have been told that when I eat too little, my body goes into starvation mode to protect itself, and that it will slow down my weight loss. Is this true and how can I avoid starvation mode?

Answer: Many weight loss coaches use the term “starvation mode” to describe your body’s natural response to protect itself when you don’t eat enough for extended periods. When you regularly eat too little food to provide your body with the necessary nutrients, it perceives itself to be in danger from starvation. Since your body is wonderfully designed to protect you, it will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy so it can keep vital organs such as the brain and the heart going for as long as possible in the face of the perceived threat. While it will burn fat for fuel, it will also start burning lean muscle mass for fuel, which will slow down your metabolism even further. People on starvation diets invariably find that they regain all the weight they’ve lost (and then some) very quickly as soon as they start eating again.

While a starvation diet may help you lose weight quite fast in the short term, you will pay a heavy price because you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of weight problems. Your metabolism gets progressively slower with each day you remain on a starvation diet. This resultant slower metabolism needs less fuel, so you consistently have to eat less and less to lose weight! As your metabolism slows down even further and your lean muscle mass dwindles you will also find that you become more and more tired. This in turn means you will get less exercise, which leaves you with less lean muscle, and an even slower metabolism. It really is a vicious cycle. The importance of protecting your lean muscle mass to boost your metabolism can not be stressed enough.

The question arises: when does your body go into starvation mode? As with anything that involves the human body, there is no one single answer that will be true for everyone. The levels at which starvation mode kicks in vary from person to person. What we can do though, is understand how it gets triggered so we can avoid getting our bodies in that state. Your decision of how much to eat should be based on your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements, which takes into account a variety of factors including height, weight, age, gender and activity levels. If you want to lose weight safely, without setting off the alarm bells in your body; aim to eat approximately 300 – 500 calories less than your total daily requirements. This will provide your body with enough fuel to keep it going comfortably, but will still create a sufficient caloric deficit to ensure that you lose weight. To protect your metabolism even further, make sure your diet contains enough protein and that you maintain / increase your activity levels.

Note. You will find that many experts advise you not to eat less than 1 200 calories per day to prevent starvation mode. This is just a general rule of thumb to provide advice in the absence of enough information. To be safe, get your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements calculated, and follow the advice above.

As we lose weight our body uses lean mass and fat as fuel. That's just part of weight loss. We try to minimize this by eating adequate protein, eating at an appropriate calorie intake compared to our calorie needs and lifting. The reason our bodies use lean mass is that it's actually easier for our bodies to break down lean tissue versus fat.

It has nothing to do with "starvation mode" as described above.

rebprest wrote: »

I'm a little confused. What makes the body burn fat as opposed to muscle. I see so many posts about weight lifting to help you retain muscle as you lose weight, why does that help? What are the factors that go into this? Whenever I do I weigh-in with my trainer she uses some type of handheld tool that says I've gone up in muscle mass and down in fat percentage. How can I be going up in muscle and down in fat but still losing? I thought you had to eat on a calorie surplus to gain muscle...

-I'm weight lifting 2 times a week and doing cardio 2 times

Also, those hand held body fat analysis devices (bioelectrical impedence) are highly inaccurate. Undigested food and hydration levels can impact them significantly. If you were to use it after using the bathroom then drink 32 ounces of water your body fat would fluctuate by 5% easily.

As a beginner you can gain a little bit of lean mass, but women who are bulking gain around a pound of lean mass in a month (two if they have the perfect conditions for growth).

the muscles are an easier energy source for your body. i started to notice more fat loss from cardio when i started to slow down. lower intensity steady state cardio can be great for tapping fat for energy.

but it's a double edged sword, as you are now training your body to rely on this energy source, it's going to start storing more of it.

No, you don't have to eat a surplus to gain muscle, assuming you are new to strength training. A surplus simply makes it easier to gain muscle. The body is a dynamic system, you are gaining and losing muscle, and gaining and losing fat, all the time.

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I'm on my phone, so I can't link all the studies that I have read where the groups with resistance training and the groups with higher protein intake lost more weight from fat compared to the diet only groups. There are lots of them. If you absolutely must see them I will come back tomorrow and post several.

rebprest wrote: »

So what I'm getting is that nobody truly knows, lol. I guess it is more complicated than I realized. I'll try to keep lifting and eating lots of protein!

Try harder and lift at least 3 times a week especially if your trying to lose weight. Google scholar is a good place to get the answers you want and that way you won't have to take our word for it, a win win.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296329
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17622289
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23019316
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23107521
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9309627
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/51113664_Effect_of_two_different_weight-loss_rates_on_body_composition_and_strength_and_power-related_performance_in_elite_athletes


These have multiple studies in their references that you can read.
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/5/969.full
http://jap.physiology.org/content/113/12/1831
http://www.jissn.com/content/11/1/20
http://www.jissn.com/content/11/1/19
http://www.jonasbergqvist.se/Files.aspx?f_id=92503

Would you like more or are these enough?

Bump

Good advice you've been given. I also don't make cardio the focus of my exercise. I superset so that elevates my heart rate lifting weights and that's good enough for me. If I do cardio, it's a 5k jog or 1/2hour step mill at a moderate pace after my weights workout.