How Running Works Actually: Burning Carbs vs. Burning Fats

Running is known to be one of the most effective yet one of the less used forms of exercise. The main reason behind this is the fact that running doesn’t bring capital to the fitness industry. It is one of the most highly rewarding yet most affordable forms of exercise. You will not need any private gym membership or a personal trainer for help. All you need is a good pair of comfy shoes. And, some stretchable sportswear that can help you make the most out of your run. According to a recent study, just a 15-minute run on a daily basis can help you maintain your blood sugar level, cholesterol level as well as maintain your body weight and body fat as well. With the help of this article, you will learn how running works actually.

As a result, you can figure out the best ways to get rid of body fat by tailoring your running.

Use of Energy in the Body through Running

Everything that we eat is used by the body. However, it is up to the body to see if the food that we have consumed can be used right now or later. If the food we consumed is too much, the body starts storing it for the rainy days. This means that the body switches to the storing mode. In fact, the body starts by breaking proteins first and consuming the energy and then switches to carbs. Once carbs are consumed, only then the body switches to fats.

Incidentally, the digestion time of proteins is around 1 to 2 hours. Next, the digestion time of carbs is around 1 to 2 hours. Finally, digestion time for fats is somewhere between 3 to 4 hours depending on the type of fats. In short, if you have consumed too much food, it will simply store it in muscles and then store it in the form of fats.

How Stored Fats are Used

When our body is in need, it uses the same stored fats and churns them down to fuel its work. This work can be simple daily tasks or extreme workouts. Our body uses stored fat for three different kinds of actions.

It uses the stored energy to work on bodily function including breathing, digestion, thinking, breathing, etc.
It uses stored energy to fuel healing of fractures, scars, repairing damaged cells, and replacing cells with new cells.
Finally, our body also uses the stored food to fuel physical activity that is usually very intense. This includes weight lifting, walking, running, and many more.

Considering these three main functions of our body, it is pretty understandable that we can neither speed up burning calories through healing nor through body function. So, we are only left with physical activity. This is exactly where exercise comes in. With the help of exercise, you can speed up the burning of calories and the body will be able to work properly.

How Running Works: Customize Running

For physical activity or running, you need to work on multiple things. Running is not just a simple physical activity that we learn as a child. It has so many different technical aspects that you need to understand before you can customize your running. Just like there are three different levels of every exercise that can range from basic beginner's level to experts’ level, running also has three different levels. These levels are controlled and conditioned by three main aspects of running. These aspects include:

First, the pace of running is a very important aspect that includes specifics about just how fast you can run.
Second, the distance of running helps in understanding how many miles or kilometers you have been running.
Finally, time of running means the overall minutes or hours that you have been running. Although the time of the day also plays an important role in customizing running, most people do not talk about it.

How Running Works: By Burning Carbs vs. Burning Fats

Most people ask why we burn carbs first and fats later although we just want to burn fats and not carbs at all. Well, researchers explain that carbs and fats both are a source of energy. They are the preferred source of energy as compared to proteins, which, by the way, are important for muscles. So, it is preferred that energy be drawn from fats or carbs instead of proteins. Carbs are the blood sugar which means the stored glycogen is carbs and you can easily use the sugar molecules to fuel the body.

Each carb is made of multiple mono sugars connected together in long chains. Within your muscles and liver, you will have glycogen that helps with immediate energy realization and your body will start using it right away. This happens during the workout mainly and cells will pull out sugar from the blood and use it for energy.

On the contrary, when you need to burn fats, the body will break fats down to fatty acids. Next, these fatty acids are absorbed by the blood steam and then used for energy. In conclusion, when the body needs energy for long periods of time it relies on fats.

So, if you want to burn fat you just need to customize your jog or run in a way that it is for a longer period of time, longer distance but at a slower pace. By the way, when the intensity is less and the body needs a continuous supply of energy, the body diverts to burning fats. Therefore, to ensure that you burn fats, keep your walks longer and your pace slower.

Bottom Line

To sum it all up, it is all about intensity. When we eat carbs, our body uses them right away for normal bodily functions. However, in the event of excess carbs being ingested, the body starts storing it in the muscles. And, when muscle storage runs out, then the body converts the carbs into fats and stores in the different parts of the body.

The same process is repeated when we try to exercise. It all begins with first, burning carbs at a high intensity for just a small amount of time. However, when the body keeps burning calories, only then does the body switch to fats. In short, if you want to lose fats, you need to exercise at a slower intensity. Which you can do by exercising for longer periods of time. So, a one hour jog is better for losing fats than a 20 minute sprint.

Just a few minutes of intense exercises will not be able to cut it. In fact, you need to switch to something less intense so that you can exercise for a longer time. Furthermore, while eating, you need to focus on what you are eating and how much you are eating. This means that both quality and quantity plays a very important role. Finally, eat more proteins with lots of greens and fiber and try to skip solid fats.