Burn More Fat!
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LaMartian
Posts: 478 Member
Burning More Fat!
I'd like to explain to you all why long-term, easygoing cardio sessions burn more fat than short burst sessions or long term intensive sessions.
Your muscles need energy to operate, of course. They get this energy, like every other cell in your body, by producing a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is produced through various processes, but for long-term use, the process aerobic respiration is used. In other words, metabolism using oxygen. This is key.
Muscle cells prefer to generate ATP from triglycerides, or fats, which are composed of a glycerol and three fatty acids. The longer the chain, the better, because more ATP can be produced. But the drawback is it requires oxygen.
So, when you're doing long-term cardio, your muscles are staying aerobic, using oxygen, and don't have to play energy catch-up using anaerobic respiration, which uses no oxygen. No oxygen used = no fat burned.
Now, when you combine this with heavy lifting, you gain more muscle cell fibers (no ladies, you will not get bulky). Combine that with your long-term cardio and you're burning even more fat than just cardio alone because you have more "fat eaters" (muscle cells) performing long-term aerobic respiration as you do the cardio.
Go forth and do great things.
I'd like to explain to you all why long-term, easygoing cardio sessions burn more fat than short burst sessions or long term intensive sessions.
Your muscles need energy to operate, of course. They get this energy, like every other cell in your body, by producing a chemical called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. ATP is produced through various processes, but for long-term use, the process aerobic respiration is used. In other words, metabolism using oxygen. This is key.
Muscle cells prefer to generate ATP from triglycerides, or fats, which are composed of a glycerol and three fatty acids. The longer the chain, the better, because more ATP can be produced. But the drawback is it requires oxygen.
So, when you're doing long-term cardio, your muscles are staying aerobic, using oxygen, and don't have to play energy catch-up using anaerobic respiration, which uses no oxygen. No oxygen used = no fat burned.
Now, when you combine this with heavy lifting, you gain more muscle cell fibers (no ladies, you will not get bulky). Combine that with your long-term cardio and you're burning even more fat than just cardio alone because you have more "fat eaters" (muscle cells) performing long-term aerobic respiration as you do the cardio.
Go forth and do great things.
8
Replies
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This might do better in the Exercise section. Not sure.0
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Ultimately it's still going to boil down to the ability to create a calorie deficit.
I'm not convinced that you can make an argument about substrate utilization during training leading to meaningful changes in body fat.7 -
I never said "burn more fat AND lose weight." I said "burn more fat." Obviously the weight loss will be the result of caloric deficit. Or amputation...4
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But the implication is that you are going to lose more body fat if you follow your recommendations when the reality is that's going to boil down to caloric balance.
If loss of body fat were dictated by substrate utilization during training we would see people losing more fat during fasted cardio and that's not the reality.
Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding the intent of your post.
My assumption here is that you are claiming that you will lose greater amount of body fat doing steady state cardio because of the amount of fat utilized during that training modality.3 -
I'm merely stating facts for anyone who wants to use them. You already know what you're doing and can do whatever you like, but for someone who's brand new, a quick "how muscle eats" and why adding in long-term cardio (at a minimum) to a diet plan isn't a bad idea. You can flip it up and down if you like, but that won't make the OP false.
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I supposed we could go further into the weeds on this if you really wanted to...
I didn't say, as you put it, that "you are going to lost more body fat if you follow [my] recommendations," but sure, if you want, I'll say it now, because it's true.
When you perform weight training, the muscle gets damaged. When the muscle is damaged, skeletal muscle creatine monophosphate is released. To create more ATP as an immediate energy source without using oxygen, i.e. for a quick burst of energy for the next contraction, the enzyme creatine kinase is used to transfer a phosphate group from a creatine phosphate molecule to an ADP molecule, producing ATP.
In other words: The muscle is eating itself.
During long-term cardio, very little muscle is being damaged and the muscle tissue is pulling its energy from the triglyceride (fat) stores.1 -
Well, if nothing else, it *is* nice to see someone not on the HiIT train.
Carry on you two.6 -
This is an interesting conversation.
@LaMartian, do you have some sources regarding what you write about in your latest response? I'd like to read up on this.
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I like HIIT just because I think it's entertaining, but I don't feel as though I'm getting any special gain out of it. It's just fun, I think, and not something I jam down others' throats claiming this or that about it. 2
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This is an interesting conversation.
@LaMartian, do you have some sources regarding what you write about in your latest response? I'd like to read up on this.
Absolutely. All my information is coming directly from my university's Anatomy & Physiology BIO 141 text book.
Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach; McKinley/O'Loughlin/Bidle: Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach, 2e2 -
I would loathe HiIT, even though I sprinted at the end of my run this morning just for fun. I've done intervals, but not all-out effort. Honestly, pushing to my threshold would likely trigger a migraine (something I've done with lifting, which is why I keep my weights a little on the light side and go for volume).
So I call myself the Queen of LISS. I'm happy with my progress on all fronts.1 -
I'm not in favor of any particular cardio modality but I'd still challenge your information here.
The claim that you will lose more bodyfat performing steady state vs HIIT is only correct in a case where you are creating a larger calorie deficit in which case it's no longer an apples to apples comparison.
As far as what a beginner needs that's largely going to come down to doing whatever they can adhere to.4 -
We aren't comparing steady state to HIIT. That'd be a big thread derail.0
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Well if anything it sounds nice... all the techy words and all..
I already do long duration cardio, so no prob for me and I hate HIIT, I only do it on the treadmill to get off it quickly in the winter months time when I can't run outside... :0 -
I supposed we could go further into the weeds on this if you really wanted to...
I didn't say, as you put it, that "you are going to lost more body fat if you follow [my] recommendations," but sure, if you want, I'll say it now, because it's true.
When you perform weight training, the muscle gets damaged. When the muscle is damaged, skeletal muscle creatine monophosphate is released. To create more ATP as an immediate energy source without using oxygen, i.e. for a quick burst of energy for the next contraction, the enzyme creatine kinase is used to transfer a phosphate group from a creatine phosphate molecule to an ADP molecule, producing ATP.
In other words: The muscle is eating itself.
During long-term cardio, very little muscle is being damaged and the muscle tissue is pulling its energy from the triglyceride (fat) stores.
I'm not sure how you're using muscle damage during training as a means to justify what happens to body fat. Can you clarify that for me please?
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I supposed we could go further into the weeds on this if you really wanted to...
I didn't say, as you put it, that "you are going to lost more body fat if you follow [my] recommendations," but sure, if you want, I'll say it now, because it's true.
When you perform weight training, the muscle gets damaged. When the muscle is damaged, skeletal muscle creatine monophosphate is released. To create more ATP as an immediate energy source without using oxygen, i.e. for a quick burst of energy for the next contraction, the enzyme creatine kinase is used to transfer a phosphate group from a creatine phosphate molecule to an ADP molecule, producing ATP.
In other words: The muscle is eating itself.
During long-term cardio, very little muscle is being damaged and the muscle tissue is pulling its energy from the triglyceride (fat) stores.
I'm not sure how you're using muscle damage during training as a means to justify what happens to body fat. Can you clarify that for me please?
During weight training, muscle breakdown occurs, which is provable by doing a blood test and noting elevated levels of skeletal muscle creatine phosphate (as opposed to elevated levels of cardiac creatine phosphate... if that's elevated, you're probably having a heart attack). Since the skeletal muscle creatine phosphate is present, creatine kinase moves its phosphate group to an ADP molecule to create ATP as an immediate source of energy to restore the muscle cell and give it energy to contract again.
Aerobic respiration against a triglyceride creates far more ATP (29 more molecules, actually), but it takes longer and the oxygen probably isn't immediately available. Hence, the use of the muscle breakdown (creatine phosphate) rather than pulling from fat during the exercise.
And I think here is where you and I are getting entangled with each other and I hope it helps clarify:
You may burn more body fat outside of the exercise period, of course, but during the exercise, you'll predominantly burn fat - instead of muscle - as you work out with cardio as opposed to an exercise that causes muscle breakdown.
If we're talking about fat loss, outside of the workout, it comes down to diet, mostly. We just talked about that. But you can burn additional fat with long-term, steady-state cardio that does not involve muscle breakdown.
I hope that's more clear?0 -
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This is an interesting conversation.
@LaMartian, do you have some sources regarding what you write about in your latest response? I'd like to read up on this.
Absolutely. All my information is coming directly from my university's Anatomy & Physiology BIO 141 text book.
Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach; McKinley/O'Loughlin/Bidle: Anatomy & Physiology: An Integrative Approach, 2e
I would like specific sources, as in peer reviewed articles for your claims, please.
University books don't always have accurate information, and the book and information therein is often outdated as well.1
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