Focusing too much on your weight loss program won’t help unless you understand how your body responds to exercise. Exercise and diet are essential for gaining muscle, losing weight, and improving health, but it’s crucial to separate myths from facts to get the most out of your efforts.
You might have noticed that your body reacts differently to the same workouts your friends at the gym do. This is due to factors like age, gender, and metabolic rate. You don’t need to be perfect to reach your weight and fitness goals, but it’s helpful to have some basic knowledge about your body before starting any exercise or diet plan.
**Sources of Energy: Fat and Carbs**
Your body uses both carbohydrates and fat as energy sources, but there’s a common belief that one is used exclusively over the other. In reality, you continuously burn both fat and carbs, even when you’re not active. For example, even watching TV burns calories from about fifty percent of your stored fat and carbs. When you get up and start jogging, your body needs quick energy from carbs, using up about seventy percent of your stores. Since fat burns more slowly, it makes up around thirty percent of the energy used.
The takeaway here is that your body burns both fat and carbs at different rates, so there’s no need to focus solely on either one. This balance is consistent, and athletes and bodybuilders lose weight by regular training and exercise, not by obsessing over fat or carbs.
**High and Low-Intensity Exercises**
Another topic is the difference between high-intensity and low-intensity exercises. Walking and jogging are excellent workouts for sustained weight loss, particularly in stubborn areas like the waist and belly. However, the duration of the exercise matters too.
You’ll burn a similar amount of fat and carbs if you walk for an hour or do several two-to-three-minute sprints with rest in between. Fat is another calorie source, and your body uses it once your carb reserves run low.
It’s important to replace the calories you lose daily. The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you consume, but you shouldn’t starve yourself just to maintain your ideal weight. If you want to increase your efforts with a full workout program, you might consider taking pre-workout supplements to enhance your performance. Proper nutrition is still critical, and any supplements should meet local food and nutrition standards. Regardless of the exercise routines you choose, progress depends on pushing your body with variety and focus.