How To Burn Fat, Not Just Glucose?

Why is it that one can exercise but not lose fat in spite of their strenuous efforts? Well the answer lies in the way that you exercise, the time you exercise and what exercise you perform and of course what you eat.

You will burn calories with exercise, but whether those calories come from fat or glucose is the key!

One does firstly have to understand that the body stores fat in the body as insulation as well as for times of need.

We evolved in a way that the body learnt to store fat for when food was scarce, as in times of famine etc. So whatever the body does not need right now from the food that you eat, it will store for a later date.Resistance exercise

The body has not evolved in a way that it recognizes the availability of food, of plenty, so it continues to retain that fat which it tries not to expend. This is the way evolution programmed us to be and unfortunately we are unable to reprogram this.

Since this is the way we are programmed, we have to also understand that the body burns fat last. To begin with it burns off sugar or glucose which is present in the system from the food eaten. This sugar is first utilized for the body’s energy needs, after then is exhausted; the fat stores of the body are targeted.

In the following ways we can end up burning fat and not glucose:

  • Exercise long enough for the body to finish burning glucose and start burning the fat.  Many experts state that for the first 20 minutes of doing cardio, the body will call upon its sugar reserves and then after that fat will be burnt. [ cardio exercises]
  • Exercise in the morning on an empty stomach when there are fewer sugars and glucose in your system for the body to burn. The fat deposits will more likely be targeted by the body for its energy needs if you exercise first thing in the morning when the glucose levels of the body are depleted. Also exercising in the morning will up your metabolism and keep it up during the day, burning even more calories.
  • Resistance exercise or weight exercise will build lean muscle tissue which burns more calories of the body even when at rest.
  • Don’t starve or eat a very low calorie diet. This will send the body a message of starvation, and the body will horde the fat. It will slow down the metabolism rather than expend the stored fat.

So make sure that your work out is as effective as you can make it, by ensuring that you are burning fat and not merely glucose.