Group: General Fitness & Exercise

Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 383, Messages: 54581

Various general exercise related discussions. Find out what it takes to reach your fitness goals through daily effective exercise. With so many options we try to find out what works best.

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Food and efficient cardio.

lucyfly
lucyfly
Posts: 30
Joined: 2004/06/22
Germany
2005/07/12, 03:58 AM
Okay, So I've been searching the site trying to answer my own question but I can't really find it.

I'm at about 18%bf and I'm tryin to lean out a little more. I work out quite a bit (working at a gym helps :big_smile:)I usually lift in the an 30min to an hour after I wake up in the morning for 30-45 min and run a little later in the day if not before bed for 1 hour. Sometimes I switch it up and I do some cardio right after I lift.

My preworkout snack has always been an apple. Usually because it's a no fuss meal and it keeps me from getting cramps. This is before I lift and before I run. Now doing my research on this site it says that I should eat protien before a run because I can only burn up all the glycogen before I start burning fat. Except when I took the personal training class I was taught that eating a low-glycemic food (which includes an apple) is appropriate to eat. I'm not sure if this is the same thing? Although in the discussions on this board state that keeping away from fruit before a cardio workout because it will take longer to get to the fat burning mode. I realize I do run for a long time and eventually it will switch over but I really want to become more efficient in losing body fat. Nutrition is definitely my weak point.

Help me!
:love:
lucy
bropie
bropie
Posts: 1,084
Joined: 2004/12/04
Canada
2005/07/12, 11:21 AM
something that may be better for you to eat would be oatmeal. it is a low glycemic food, and will be broken down over a longer period of time, giving you sustained energy and preventing glycogen depletion. mix it with milk, throw in some cottage cheese or egg whites, peanut butter, or some small protein just incase you run a little too long. protein is more important after a workout for muscle rebuilding, and complex carbs are better before a workout. personally, i have a pb and j sandwich about an hour before i workout. gives me a tremendous amount of energy for lifting or running, as my workouts are usually in the hour range.
ironmonga
ironmonga
Posts: 185
Joined: 2005/02/09
United States
2005/07/12, 05:08 PM
lucyfly: You may also want to look at HIIT instead of cardio for dropping the fat. Studies have shown that HIIT burns fat upto 9 times faster than airobic training. Yes you will use glycogen but the beauty is that the fat burning begins after when your resting and continues for most of the day. The reason for this as you may be awrare is that the body needs to make ATP to perform any activety. When doing airobic exercize there is more oxegen in the blood than usual because the using oxegen is a very efficiant way for the body to make ATP However if ATP is needed in a hurry before the heart and lungs have a chance to increase the suply of oxegen for ATP production the body can resort to to a more energy expencive source which is your glycogen stores in your muscles. Dont be to worried about that because your liver is a sort of resovoir of glycogen and will repay your muscles back when your body is in recovery and this is where the fat burning takes place. As for nutrition I would stay clear of peanut butter and oats as there are far better sources of protein and complex carbs with less fat, if your heavy you should use protein shakes, egg whites, tuna, chicken, turkey, cottage cheese (as mentioned above), yoghurt, etc. for your protein and salad lo GI fruits such as aples and whole wheat crackers etc for your carbs. Try also to take in a lot of water your body performs better when its well hydrated and gets you through your sets and hence helps you burn more fat.
lucyfly
lucyfly
Posts: 30
Joined: 2004/06/22
Germany
2005/07/13, 12:17 AM
bropie: After much research apples are enough to get me going energy wise I just want to make sure that my run is burning it up to burn fat. I don't want to make a big mistake by being counter productive. I DO want my glycogen stores to be depleted to start burning fat. Performance is not a goal in this stage of my life. I reached my certian goals for distance and now I'm shifting it to fat loss.

Ironmonga: I use HIIT to switch up my routines every once in a while. The problem with it is I get burned out quite easily and also my runs are very important to my mentality even though I can only do them 3-4 times a week. I just want to make everything I'm doing a little more efficient with nutrition. Making sure an apple won't hurt my efficiency on fat burning. If it does is there a 'perfect' solution? I'm 110llb 5ft tall 18% bf. A four pack is surfacing nicely, I just want to step it up and get the other two to come out from hiding. :)



:love:
lucy
ironmonga
ironmonga
Posts: 185
Joined: 2005/02/09
United States
2005/07/13, 08:04 AM
Lucy: The whole idea when trying to lose weight is inefficiency not efficiencey. The less efficient your body is at burning calories the the harder it is for it to hold on to your fat stores. When doing airobic activety the body has time to learn and adapt in the way that it makes ATP and in the way that it uses your muscles for instance giveing priority to slow twtch fibers that are far more energy efficient than fast twitch etc so long term airobic exercize will soon begin to fail as a fat burning exercize. With HIIT however the body never gets a chance to do this instead you are more prone to build up on your fast twitch fibers that are far less efficient evn wheen not in use. you say you get burned out easy doing HIIT well thats the idea. an aple is ok but I would combine it with a protein shake. There is no perfect solution when it comes to looking the way you want unless you are genetically gifted. We are all looking for the same results but some of us just have to work harder than others to get there. You can do a HIIT session in a quater of the time that it takes you to do a cardio session and burn more callories in the proccess.