This might be a lengthy post. But bear with me, please.
I know a bit about nutrition and diet; however, I don’t understand body consumption of energy.
They say that carbs are the body’s fuel, which means carbs are essential. But They also say if you cut carbs, your body will go to your fat storage and lose weight. if so, doesn’t that mean in theory that the keto diet will always work for weight loss since the whole point is to lower the fat percentage? (I know all about calories in and out, so no explanation is needed there).
I heard Mat Fraser say that he went to the competitions with a higher fat percentage than the rest, and in the long run, it gave him extra energy to win the competition, so does that support the argument above?
if Fat storages are that good, does that mean overweight people have extra energy than fitter people? something doesn’t make sense
why do people before games or competitions eat bananas? (I’m assuming it’s full of carbs and carbs = energy?)
In addition to bananas, I’ve seen people eating candy bars, biscuits before a competition; why? Why sugar tho? What’s the difference between it and a banana?
if sugar gives energy, why not eat it before a training session? I’m confused
And since people eat banana and chocolate bars to give them energy, why not caffeine? doesn’t caffeine give energy as well?
is there a difference between energy consumed during, for example, weight training and basketball training?
If my questions are too much, please refer me to an expert or a professional that I can correspond with.
Most of the body tissues can burn either fat or glucose. There a few notable exceptions:
The red blood cells can only burn glucose because they don’t have mitochondria, and the brain can’t burn most fats because of the blood brain barrier. To deal with this, the body can make glucose and ketones and that is enough to run things. Whenever people are on full fasts - not eating for multiple days - these are the systems that keep us going.
Energy use in exercise is *complicated*, but I’ll try to simplify…
There are two energy systems for muscles. The aerobic system can burn either fat or glucose, but they have different pathways and are developed depending on how much glucose is around. Layered on top of that power is the lactate system / glycolytic system - this is sometimes called the “anaerobic system” but that’s a stupid name for what is going on - that only burns glucose.
How these systems work depends upon how an athlete trains. An athlete who does a lot of low-intensity work - usually known as “zone 2 work” - will build a strong aerobic system. That system will either be good at burning glucose (if the the athlete eats carbs before/during their exercise) or good at burning fat (if there are few carbs around - say the athlete goes on a long slow run before breakfast).
For long events - marathons or 100 mile bicycle rides - athletes who don’t do zone 2 training or those who always do it with carbs around will burn a lot of glucose and therefore will need to eat carbs before and during or they will run out of energy eventually.
It gets more complicated for higher-intensity events and athletes who are concerned about performance, but generally speaking, being a better fat burner makes an endurance athlete more flexible and versatile.
To get back to your questions, the very common idea that you should eat carbs to fuel your workout is one of the stupidest ideas out there. Most people are hoping to burn fat during their workouts, and having carbs before you start is guaranteed to *minimize* the amount of fat that you burn.
carbs are the main source of energy for most people,so by cutting carbs your total calorie intake is lower.Same applies to fat.
during running(specifically long distance running) and other aerobic activities fat is primarily utilised by the body.
3)Fat is much more calorie dense (9 cal vs 4 cal carbs),so yes fat people have more calorie reserve.
carb loading,improves performance especially in anaerobic high intensity since it is a quicker source of energy.Our body stores less than 500 gm of glycogen .That is why glucose heavy gatorade is given to replenish it during games
sugar = glucose ,quick source of energy.Biscuits & candies contain a lot of sugar .
Digestion,it takes some time to digest and absorb the nutrient.Gatorade etc is usually given .Also,too much food will also upset performance.
Caffeine is taken to improve performance as supplement by many athletes.
yes,you can search it online
Carbohydrates are NOT and essential macronutrient. You’re aren’t required to consume it to survive, however unless youre aiming for Keto/low carb or Eat far too many carbs, there isn’t much of a reason to cut them out.Since I’m assuming you haven’t got much nutrition knowledge allow me to extremely oversimplified this.The body uses ATP for energy.There are three methods for ATP production: aerobic, anaerobic and Creatine Phosphate (this is the one that people use creatine for).Now TECHNICALLY aerobic and anaerobic are used together, however vaguely speaking…Aerobic uses GLUCOSE to produce ATP, you breathe in, oxygen in taken in, oxidation of that glucose and go. It’s a sharp and quick system. But it takes a while to start as you need more oxygen to go. (Basically a car system)Anaerobic does NOT use oxygen but instead, but will use any and all fuel (carbs, fats, proteins but only uses protein as an backup, generally avoids it). This system is always working and can go on forever.Creatine, basically the P in ATP is Phosphate, Creatine comes with Phosphate attached. So your body cleaves it onto the system. Extremely sharp and effective in your weight lifting sessions.Now.. why do athletes consume carbs in the form of sugar, if the anaerobic system works indefinitely and instantly? Simple. Because all three systems work together the goal is to essentially crank up the aerobic system. Get the car engine working harder along side the already existing engine of the anaerobic system.Is consuming chocolate and low quality sugar effective? Absolutely not. It’s an awful idea and you’d be better off with apples, Bananas or a glucose powder as these are far more effective (the glucose is better available and the minerals allow for the effective burning of energy).Your question about Keto… Keto is difficult to cover so simply but weightloss from Keto is explained this way. Carbohydrates in your body (glycogen) are water loving molecules, and will hold onto it. It fills out your muscles. Keto/low carb removes/lowers carbs from the diet and therefor glycogen. Less glycogen, less water stored along side em. Another aspect of weight loss from Keto is the reduction in inflammation. Because everyone is eating heavily processed food, inflammation is the new norm. This seems to cause bloating, fat storage in some cases, water storage too. So there’s weightloss from that, tho I’m less educated in that area of low carb/Keto.Your question about the obese… yes they have more energy in storage. But also they weight so much more. Think of a bike, it’s fast AF but if you put a shit tone of oil on it, it’ll actually be slower and less effective overall.TAKE AWAY POINTS:1 - You don’t have to consume carbs to live.2 - Carbs work well in the aerobic system, hence the consumption of pre-competition carbs… however this is unnecessary for most.3 - weightloss from Keto is most the reduction of glycogen water based stores and the reduction of inflammation.4 - fat people have more fuel, but it’s stored and isn’t so easy to just move and get rid of it.
Go to YouTube and look up biolayne. His name is Layne Norton. He is a great resource for information. Backed by science. Entertaining as well. He actually explains a lot of questions people ask on these forms. And also debunks a lot of myths.