Are You Burning Fat or Muscle on a Diet?
It's easy to burn down muscle...
Muscle Weighs More than Fat
The Truth about Scales
Do you weigh yourself? Daily? Once a week? Or just occasionally? We have been brought up (often obsessively) to chase that number on the scale to determine if we have gained weight or have lost weight. Well, guess what – your scale May Be Lying!
Without a body composition monitor on your scale, the weight alone can be very deceptive. Why? Because unless you are living a low carb - high protein lifestyle like we teach at BonVie Weight Loss & Nutritional Wellness you may well be burning down muscle rather than burning fat, especially if you are just counting calories. If you are eating too many carbs and too little protein, your scale may show a weight loss, but it will be mostly muscle, not fat that you have burned.
Burning Muscle, Not Fat
Muscle weighs more than fat so if you are primarily burning that rather than the deep visceral fat around your belly, it will appear that you have lost weight but in fact, it’s mostly muscle not fat.
Muscle Loss Shows up on the Scale Now back to the scale. Let’s say it shows a 10 lb weight loss – you celebrate, right? But if you step onto a Body Composition Monitor which shows percentages of fat, lean mass, and of hydration you may find that your fat percentage has remained the same, or has even gone up and that your muscle is down from an inadequate amount, or quality of protein, or if you are over-exercising without adequate protein supplementation.
The YoYo Diet Effect
At BonVie we are always concerned about sparing your muscle because muscle uses fat for fuel. You never want to lose that on a diet because then at the end of your program you have less muscle then you started with and that puts you at a disadvantage for burning fat. This is the biggest reason for fat-regain or the “Yo-Yo” effect after a diet. (And is also the reason why men lose weight faster than women – they have more muscle).
The 3 Sources of Fuel
Whether we burn fat or muscle all has to do with the 3 sources of fuel which we use for energy:
Glucose, from eating carbs/sugars .
Muscle. Muscle uses fat for fuel so we never want to burn down muscle.
Fat.
We burn these fuels in that order because fat is a preservation fuel. Our bodies want to hold onto fat in case we go into starvation mode. That preservation mode is also triggered when we practice "fasting".
The Fat Burning Formula
The secret for losing weight by burning fat, not muscle, is eating lean protein 3-4 times a day and minimal carbs no more than twice a day. And be sure you are getting 4 cups of low-glycemic vegetables and two liters of H20!
