What does our body burn first muscle or fat?

Celina

Cathlete
Cathe, (or anyone who can help)
I hope this doesn't seem to dumb on my part, but I was noticing that to build muscle we do more lifting than cardio. To burn fat we do more cardio than lifting. If we lift heavy and do cardio are we burning away the muscle we are building or does our body burn the fat first?
Thanks!!
Celina
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The only time you would use muscle (protein) as an energy source is if you ate a very low carb diet like Atkins, or did an intense activity for longer than 2hrs (marathon, bike race, etc). Keeping your carbs at their optimum level fuels your muscles with glycogen which is what you use during a workout (and everyday activities). This is why is very important to eat 1g of carbs per kg of body weight 1 hr. prior to exercise (or .5g/kg 30mins prior) and the same is true for immediately after your workout to replace the lost glycogen. (Kg's are figured by dividing your weight in lbs by 2.2).

HTH :)
 
The muscle you build stays with you, and it's strong and solid as long as you continue to keep up your exercise and eat right. Now if you decide to workout 2 hours a day and only eat a 3 crackers for you whole intake of food that day. Yes your body will eat the muscle your building, but then after a few days of that, you won't be getting out of bed, and you'll feel really really weak. Not to mention really hungry.

But your body will hit the carbs first, and then the fat, just make sure your calorie intake is high enough that it will hit both the carbs and the fat. As the funny thing about our bodies, is if you don't eat enough, it will slow down and then start saving. Which then turns to more fat. If your trying to lose weight, eat as often as possible, but keep it good and healthy and watch the calories. But if you can fuel your body every 3 to 4 hours while your up and moving, you'll keep it pumped up and burning both crabs and fat. Provided what your sticking in your mouth isn't junk. And you don't need a whole meal every 3 to 4 hours, but just 1/2 a serving or so. I know some people really do like to have a real sit down meal 3 times a day and if your one go with a 1/4 or 1/2 a serving of fruit or veggies for your inbetween meals, meal. If your like me, and like to eat all day long and don't like to actually have to sit down and eat 3 or 4 things at once, divide the meal up so you eat 1/4 of it about every hour. Since I like to snack in front of the computer and since my computer is my work. I simply just divide my meals up so I can eat them while I work, so I don't get any extra snacks. And I don't have to take a break for lunch or whatever, as it's being taken care of as I type and do other things. One thing I did notice doing this, was my motablism really seemed to speed up and when I exercised I had a lot more energy.

Kit
 
You have gotten great replies already. I just wanted to add that the first thing that your body burns are calories from carbs, then from fat, and if you're really starving yourself and your body has no way to get its fuel from carbs or fat then it will start using protein as an energy source and then you lose muscle mass.

If you lift heavy and do cardio you won't burn away muscle mass. That only comes from doing lots of activity without enough fuel. Your body burns fat doing both cardio and lifting weights. Cardio is to burn excess fat your body is carrying and to burn excess calories for a couple of hours after your workout. Weight lifting is for toning your muscles and maintenance, but every time you workout with weights your muscles keep burning calories up to aprox. 24 hrs after the workout. When you are a couple of pounds overweight you should do a little more cardio than weight training than when you reach your goal weight. Then when you reach your goal weight it is generally a good idea to do more weight lifting than cardio for maintenance.
 

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