hello all...
im a newbie and this is first post ...im 34 and have recently got very interested in diet and fitness.. i have read alot of fitness articles over the last few weeks and am very confused by the differing opinions (from so called experts) on when muscle tissue catabolism takes place. some sites say this wont happen unless your on an extremely long fast/intense workout programme while others say if you skip breakfast there is the potential for muscle catabolism..(i find the latter hard to believe because of the fat stored in our bodies). i found other articles were unclear (in opinion) saying that the body broke down amino acids from muscles to convert to glucose for energy ,but im not sure if that meant the amino acids came from stored muscle glycogen or muscle tissue???
i would really appreciate if anyone could tell me the order our body gets it energy sources from including blood glucose,muscle glycogen,liver glycogen,stored fat, muscle tissue and anything else i dont know about.. i understand our metabolism is very complex and maybe this order changes in different circumstances but a starting point for me would be great ....
What I can say, is about 40% of protein is converted to Glycogen and as for muscle catabolism from skippng breakfast, yes you could get that, because you wouldn't be eating any protein, which means no BCAA's to help preserve muscle mass.
thanks boss man
so our bodies "can" use muscle tissue as energy source even when we have fat stores!! what happens to the other 60% protein..? can u tell me the order our body uses up its energy sources (am particularly interested in when we burn fat). its hard to make sense of all the contradicting info on diff sites. can u recommend a book or site i can get good clear info on our metabolism and when we use diff energy sources....must check if theres a metabolism for dummies book!!
I think all of the remaining 60% Protein is broken down into individual amino acids and used for the functions they've evolved to assist with.
The body will use muscle for energy just like fat. If it does, it's said you produce an ammonia type smell.
Muscle should be the last resource to be used, but the body can use it potentially during sleep, through the cessation of access to dietary fuel, because you haven't eaten for some time, the body has used what it isn't going to get for some time to come, hence why it will fuel itself with natural resources to help it self function adequately.
Well I don't know the exact ins and outs of it, so I can't say if it's a natural thing or a human flaw.
It may be something that occurs in apes, but then again maybe not. So it would depend on how human physiology has altered since the ape days, as to whether it represents a flaw in the evolutionary process, or simply something that occured many species ago, when living things evolved many similar characteristics, that humans now have.
