While you're doing cardio does ur body burn thru glycogen and then start burning fat or is it more designed just to help create a calorie deficit for the day?
Hope my question makes sense, thanks!
Hope my question makes sense, thanks!
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Cardio burns a combination of fat, glycogen, and, in extreme situations, muscle. How much of each depends on the conditioning of the individual, diet, and the duration and intensity of the workout.
If I remember correctly, after the first 20 minutes or so of moderately intense exercise (about 60% of max heart rate), the average trainee is burning about 60-70% of the calories from fat and the rest from glycogen. The better shape you are in and the better your diet the more of your calories will come from fat.
when you do cardio, your body does burn through glycogen and then it will start to tap into some fat stores....however, you aren't doing cardio long enough for this to happen. This usually happens for people around mile 18 or 20 of a marathon, and then they hit the wall. They are trying to rely on fat, which burns very slowly without some carbohydrates to help provide kreb cycle intermediates and make the kreb cycle efficiently work in order to provide you with the energy needed for the task at hand.
The longer the duration of exercise, the more there is a shift towards fat utilization, however, you will always be burning a percentage. Worry about the percentage is silly. Think about it.....the 'fat burning zone' happens at a really low haert rate. In fact, we burn more fat at rest than anything else. if you want to burn the highest percentage of your calories from fat, take a nap!!
You have to just focus on overal calories expended. At the end of the day, that is what is going to tell you if you are making strides towards your fat loss goals.
If low intensity cardiovasuclar exercise were the only way to get lean, then sprinters would be fat as hell....think about their training....run 100m, rest, 100m, rest, run 50m, rest, run 50m, rest.....or 400m tempo run, rest, 400m, tempo run, rest, etc.....On the contrary, they are leaner and more muscular than the marathon runners, and those elite marathon runners are skinny and lean because they are ELITE! They have a higher ratio of type I fibers and they are efficient at using fat as fuel. That is genetics. Evera watch a marathon? After the first 100 or 200 people, most of the others that are coming are some of the most out of shape (and in some cases fat) people I have ever seen (not all of them).
Finally, lets just look at percentage of carbs to fats burned during high intensity exercise and long duration exercise. these are just hypothetical numbers.
Lets say we both go in the gym to do 30min of cardio.
I do sprints and you do long duration fat burning cardio.
You are at a work rate of 8 cals per minute and about 70% of your cals are coming from fat. So, in 30min, you have 240 calories burned w/168 of those coming from "fat".
I do sprints and I am at a work rate of 15 cals per min. on my interval and 8 cals per min. on my recovery (equal to your slow cardio). lets say I am doing 30sec intervals of work and 60sec. intervals of recover for the 30min, period. Since I am doing sprints, the percentage of fat being used will be less since my heart rate is increasing and I am using anaerobic pathways. So, lets say on the intense intervals I 30% of the cals coming from fat and on the recovery I am at 70% of the cals coming from fat (like you). So, lets do the math. In 30min., I would be able to get 20 sprints and 20 recover intervals. So, for my sprints, I have 15 cals per min x 10min (since each sprint is 30sec. 20/2= 10) = 150 cals with 45 of them coming from fat. For my recovery, I have 8 cals per min x 20min = 160 cals w/112 of those cals coming from fat.
Now, at the end of that 30min, I have burned 262 total calories, with 157 of those calories coming from fat.
You have burned only 240 calories, w/168 of them coming from fat.
I have created a greater caloric defecit. Now also, this is not counting execess post exercise oxygen consuption that I get when I am done with the exercise because of the intensity of the intervals, and this does not count the excess oxygen consumption I get DURING the workout on my recovery intervals because of the intensity of my work. So, overal, I win on every account.
Good write up you had me right until the final computation. If you lost a greater caloric number but I lost a greater number of calories from Fat doesn't that make me the winner?? Please clarify.
I've been doing a combination of sprinting and low impact cardio and this is very interesting to me. I typically burn 175cal in 25min.