Turning Fat into Muscle - Burning Fat, Maintaining Muscle - Health
When you are overweight, it's best to burn the fat first with cardiovascular exercise," according to Huberto Lopez, one of the many personal trainers in New York. "This way, all of your energy goes toward burning fat so you see a difference faster. And seeing the difference is what really helps you psychologically."
In order to burn fat, the common recommendation is some form of cardiovascular activity that lasts for a minimum of 20 minutes at least three times weekly. The reason is that individual muscle cells harbor their own energy source in the form of glycogen, a chemical fuel that is converted to energy fairly quickly, and it is not until these stores are depleted that you can start to burn fat. It is for this reason that many trainers encourage a morning workout, as your muscles have been burning their glycogen stores all night and get depleted more rapidly, forcing a premature switch to body fat as an energy source. Although there is no real difference in liver-stored glycogen levels before and after a workout, there is a dramatic differences your muscle cells.
Cardiovascular exercise generally means an activity that will elevate your heart rate to your "target range", a measure intended to ensure a not-too-hot or not-too-cold type of workout. To calculate your target heart rate, simply subtract your age from 220, and then multiply that number 0.65 and 0.85 to get your lower and upper limits respectively. Any pulse rate above your upper limit generally means you are working too hard and probably gasping for air anyway, while any pulse rate falling below your minimum means you are not pushing yourself hard enough.
Your metabolism, genetics, and intensity level will all affect your progress, but the better in shape you get, the more efficiently you burn fat. Although fat contains more than twice as much energy per gram as glycogen, it takes more energy to convert it to a readily usable form. The extra effort in converting fat to energy is one of the reasons why overweight people have trouble sustaining aerobic exercise over 20 minutes, but many organizations have weighed in on the national discourse on exercise.
"Talking to committed exercisers about the benefits of physical activity is like introducing a dedicated shopper to the joys of a Nordstrom's' anniversary sale," according to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the non-profit group responsible for certifying health professionals in the U.S. Although such an analogy might sound a little extreme and even a little weird, ACE recommends that you mix your cardiovascular exercises up to avoid boredom, or simply pick an exercise that works for you. Although cross-country skiing and fast jogging have been shown to burn the most energy per unit time, any exercise that gets your heart pumping in your target heart range for at least 20 minutes will suffice.
Although cardiovascular exercise ensures that your muscles don't atrophy, gaining muscle mass can actually help to burn fat. Although it is impossible to turn fat directly into muscle, they are, after all, what are doing the burning so the more muscle you have, the more fat you can burn.
But muscle weight gain is an activity that works against fat loss in a lot of ways, especially diet, so trainers recommend that you burn away the fat first before starting any sort of muscle gaining regimen.
The bottom line is just finding a system that works for you mentally and physically, and then sticking with it. Lacking in self-discipline might mean you should join a gym, rent one of those zany and peppy Richards Simmons tapes, or fly up to Minnesota to hear Jesse "the body" Ventura talk about how "Pain is good!", but there are no longer any excuses.
