great article on fat, carb, protein burning

[Guest guest]

from

 

http://www.mercola.com/2005/jul/7/muscle_fuel.htm

 

Wise Up and Stop Eating Your Muscles for Fuel

 

 

Ron Rosedale, MD

 

By Ron Rosedale, MD

 

Some of you may be thinking, " I may eat a lot of

starchy carbohydrates, but at the same meal, I am also

eating protein and fat. Why am I just burning sugar

and storing fat? " It's a good question, and it gets to

the heart of the vicious cycle.

 

Let's assume that you are following the current

dietary recommendations that tell you to eat more than

half of your daily calories in the form of

carbohydrate. You fill your plate with a cup or so of

pasta, topped with meatballs, some tomato sauce and

cheese.

 

From the minute the pasta is in your mouth, it begins

to be broken down into simple sugar. Your body can

only store a small amount of sugar at a time in the

form of glycogen that is stored in muscle and liver.

What's not stored as glycogen is burned off as quickly

as possible, forcing you to burn sugar, but your cells

can only burn so much off at a time.

 

What happens to the rest of the sugar that isn't being

stored or burned? It is converted into saturated fat.

What about the protein and the fat in the meal that

you just ate? Some of the protein is taken up by the

cells for repair and maintenance, but your cells can

only utilize a small amount of protein at a time. The

rest, largely, is turned to sugar and stored as

saturated fat. That leaves just the fat that is not

burned when sugar is around to burn, which gets stored

away as more fat.

 

Why isn't the protein and fat burned as fuel? Because

you must first burn up sugar if it is available. If

you eat sugar and fat together, you have to burn sugar

first before you burn the fat. Furthermore, your cells

get used to burning a particular fuel, in this case,

sugar.

 

When you are younger, your metabolism is more

flexible, and you can switch fuels more easily. As you

get older, your cells get stuck in a rut, and if they

are used to burning sugar, they will look for more

sugar to burn when they need fuel.

 

You have to burn almost every gram of available sugar

before fat burning kicks in.

 

Your Cellular Addiction to Sugar

 

Being a sugar burner is not a good thing. Your cells

begin to crave sugar, and they don't care where the

sugar comes from. If you go to sleep and you're still

in a sugar-burning mood, your body is going to

continuing look for sugar to burn as you sleep. You

won't like where it gets it.

 

When your cells are " hungry, " they will quickly go

through the starchy glycogen in your liver and muscle

to get sugar, however, your body would prefer to save

your stored sugar (glycogen) for anaerobic)

emergencies, such as sprinting away from a lion, and

therefore will only give up a small portion.

 

Do You Really Want to Use Your Muscles as Fuel?

 

Thus, your cells will continue to look elsewhere for

sugar to burn by breaking down protein in your muscle

and even bone, which it can also burn as sugar. This

is a far more significant cause of osteoporosis than

not taking calcium supplements.

 

Here's the kicker: As long as there is sugar to be

had, and your hormones are telling you not to burn

fat, your cells won't go into your fat stores. You can

have pounds of excess fat just waiting to be burned,

and your cells will bypass it to get to sugar. As long

as you continue to eat a high-carbohydrate,

high-sugar, or excess protein diet, your body will

keep on burning sugar and storing fat.

 

As long as you are leptin-resistant, you will stay

hungry because of the brain's inability to " hear "

leptin. When you are leptin-resistant, your brain is

telling your body to make fat, store it and,

importantly, to conserve the fat that you have. You

then have no choice: You must burn sugar.

 

Stop Eating Your Muscles

 

In order to break the vicious cycle, you need to

retrain your brain to instruct your cells to burn fat

as your body's primary fuel. When you are a true

fat-burner, your cells eat fat even when you're not

eating. When your cells need energy, they can get it

from your fat stores. You're burning fat all the time,

even when you're sleeping, and you don't eat your

muscles and bone. Your brain doesn't care whether the

fat just came from what you eat, or whether it comes

from deep in your viscera by delving into your fat

stores.

 

Your arteries will also be allowed to burn their own

fat stores -- the plaque that ultimately can plug them

up. If you start burning the fat you've stored, you

feel satisfied and you won't get hungry because your

cells are being properly nourished.

 

Our prehistoric ancestors actually ate a lot more fat

than we do today, and did not routinely eat grains or

much fruit because they weren't often available. They

had no choice but to be fat-burners, and not

surprisingly, their bodies were leaner, their bones

stronger, and they did not appear to suffer from the

same chronic diseases we do today.

 

I'm not suggesting that they ate an optimal diet. They

had limited choices, but ironically, they probably ate

better than most of the world's population does today.

 

Once you become a proficient fat-burner, when your

cells need energy, they will get it from your fat

stores. Your brain doesn't care whether the fat comes

from the food you just ate, or from the fat that is

embedded in your abdomen, arteries or other places in

your body. It will start burning off the excess fat

you have stored by feeding your cells the healthy fat

they need.

 

And, you will not be hungry: You will get healthier

and you will slow the rate at which you age.

 

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

 

I could not agree more strongly with Dr. Rosedale's

elegant and eye-opening explanation of how our

metabolism works. Understanding these principles will

help us choose our foods more wisely.

 

Just to remind you about Dr. Ron Rosedale's

credentials, 10 years ago I listened to his lecture on

insulin and it transformed my entire understanding on

nutrition and was largely responsible for my first NY

Times best-selling book.

 

He is also one of this country's leading experts on

leptin, a hormone whose appreciation is where

insulin's was 10 years ago. Over the past few months,

he has been kind enough to expand on the new

appreciation of leptin a number of times on my Web

site.

 

The original draft of his book, The Rosedale Diet, had

the best explanation of the science of leptin written.

However, publishers are under pressure to sell books

to the masses to make money, thus his book was edited

to do so, and some of the science did not make it past

the scissors.

 

The public's loss is your gain in this case, as you

are now able to read some excerpts of his original

version that have not been previously published.

 

In addition to sharing nutrition interests, Dr.

Rosedale and I both share photography as a hobby.

Later this summer we are getting together so he can

teach me some of his landscape photography insights.

 

Related Articles:

 

21st Century New Kid on the Block: Leptin

 

Burn Fat, Not Sugar, to Lose Weight

 

Diabetes Is Not A Disease Of Blood Sugar!

 

Insulin and Its Metabolic Effects

 

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