Read Online The South Beach Diet Supercharged: Faster Weight Loss and Better Health for Life by Arthur Agatston, Joseph Signorile - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Arthur Agatston, Joseph Signorile
Tags: Medical, Fitness, Cooking, Health, Health & Fitness, Health & Healing, Weight Control, Nutrition, recipes, Diet, Diets, Weight Loss, Diets - Weight Loss, Diets - General, Reducing diets, Diet Therapy, Reducing exercises, Exercise
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analogous to burning coal in a furnace to run a steam engine. The burning coal heats the water that makes the steam that propels the engine.
At the peak of endurance training, athletes like Lance Armstrong require roughly 6,000 to 9,000 calories a day to keep their muscles working for extended periods of time. It seems like these elite endurance athletes must spend most of their nonexercise, nonsleeping time eating just to keep up with their training muscles’ demand for energy. For most of us, however, all the fuel we need for a regular exercise and weight loss program is easily consumed in the healthy meals and snacks we should be eating every day.
Another key point to understand about metabolism is that there are two types, and each one burns different fuels. Aerobic metabolism requires oxygen to make ATP and can use both sugar and fat as fuel. Anaerobic metabolism doesn’t use oxygen to make ATP and burns sugar and a compound known as creatine phosphate, which is made in the cells, for fuel.
If the words aerobic and anaerobic are familiar to you, it’s because we also use them to categorize different types of exercise. Aerobic activities (sometimes called cardio), which can be done for a long duration, include walking, cycling, rowing, and working out on a treadmill or an elliptical trainer. Since these are done at a relatively low intensity level, you can usually maintain your performance using the aerobic systems of the body. Therefore, by breathing more deeply and more frequently and having your heart beat faster, you can deliver sufficient blood and oxygen to supply your muscles’ needs without accumulating excessive waste products that can fatigue your muscles. Anaerobic activities, such as weight training, jumping rope, and sprinting, work muscles at a high intensity and consequently require energy faster than the aerobic systems can supply it, even though they’re working as hard as they can. The result is that your working muscles rapidly build up waste and tire out. Therefore, anaerobic exercise cannot be sustained for long, and you’re forced to reduce activity to a level where aerobic metabolism once more dominates.
There are several misconceptions about exercise in general and anaerobic exercise in particular. One of the biggest myths is that you can burn fat only by doing aerobic exercise. This idea is based on a misinterpretation of the fact that fat is an aerobic fuel, and it has led to a second, more insidious myth: When you work at a high-intensity anaerobic level, such as during interval training, you shut down your fat-burning machinery. This is simply not true; it’s based on a misconception about how your metabolism operates. We were once taught that the body can be in only one mode of metabolism at a time—either aerobic (burning sugar and fat) or anaerobic (burning sugar and creatine phosphate).
In reality, as you exercise, your body slides freely between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Depending on the activity, your body may favor one type over the other, but it’s never exclusively in aerobic or anaerobic mode. You’re never actually burning just sugar, fat, or creatine phosphate. You’re burning all three fuels simultaneously. But, depending on your activity, you’re burning more of one than another.
When you do interval training, you’re repeatedly moving from high-intensity work to low-intensity work, and you’re also moving along the metabolic spectrum. You can’t maintain a high-intensity level for too long because you’ll get tired. Tiredness occurs for several reasons: First, you rapidly burn through your high-energy fuel, creatine phosphate, while you’re still burning sugar and fat. Second, your muscles make lactic acid and a number of waste products, which contribute to fatigue. So, to cope with this fatigue, you slow down and move into your low-intensity recovery period. During this recovery period, you’re not only burning off lactic acid as fuel, you’re
At the peak of endurance training, athletes like Lance Armstrong require roughly 6,000 to 9,000 calories a day to keep their muscles working for extended periods of time. It seems like these elite endurance athletes must spend most of their nonexercise, nonsleeping time eating just to keep up with their training muscles’ demand for energy. For most of us, however, all the fuel we need for a regular exercise and weight loss program is easily consumed in the healthy meals and snacks we should be eating every day.
Another key point to understand about metabolism is that there are two types, and each one burns different fuels. Aerobic metabolism requires oxygen to make ATP and can use both sugar and fat as fuel. Anaerobic metabolism doesn’t use oxygen to make ATP and burns sugar and a compound known as creatine phosphate, which is made in the cells, for fuel.
If the words aerobic and anaerobic are familiar to you, it’s because we also use them to categorize different types of exercise. Aerobic activities (sometimes called cardio), which can be done for a long duration, include walking, cycling, rowing, and working out on a treadmill or an elliptical trainer. Since these are done at a relatively low intensity level, you can usually maintain your performance using the aerobic systems of the body. Therefore, by breathing more deeply and more frequently and having your heart beat faster, you can deliver sufficient blood and oxygen to supply your muscles’ needs without accumulating excessive waste products that can fatigue your muscles. Anaerobic activities, such as weight training, jumping rope, and sprinting, work muscles at a high intensity and consequently require energy faster than the aerobic systems can supply it, even though they’re working as hard as they can. The result is that your working muscles rapidly build up waste and tire out. Therefore, anaerobic exercise cannot be sustained for long, and you’re forced to reduce activity to a level where aerobic metabolism once more dominates.
There are several misconceptions about exercise in general and anaerobic exercise in particular. One of the biggest myths is that you can burn fat only by doing aerobic exercise. This idea is based on a misinterpretation of the fact that fat is an aerobic fuel, and it has led to a second, more insidious myth: When you work at a high-intensity anaerobic level, such as during interval training, you shut down your fat-burning machinery. This is simply not true; it’s based on a misconception about how your metabolism operates. We were once taught that the body can be in only one mode of metabolism at a time—either aerobic (burning sugar and fat) or anaerobic (burning sugar and creatine phosphate).
In reality, as you exercise, your body slides freely between aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Depending on the activity, your body may favor one type over the other, but it’s never exclusively in aerobic or anaerobic mode. You’re never actually burning just sugar, fat, or creatine phosphate. You’re burning all three fuels simultaneously. But, depending on your activity, you’re burning more of one than another.
When you do interval training, you’re repeatedly moving from high-intensity work to low-intensity work, and you’re also moving along the metabolic spectrum. You can’t maintain a high-intensity level for too long because you’ll get tired. Tiredness occurs for several reasons: First, you rapidly burn through your high-energy fuel, creatine phosphate, while you’re still burning sugar and fat. Second, your muscles make lactic acid and a number of waste products, which contribute to fatigue. So, to cope with this fatigue, you slow down and move into your low-intensity recovery period. During this recovery period, you’re not only burning off lactic acid as fuel, you’re
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