Physical Activity: How Fats Are Consumed

For everyone, including professional athletes, it is essential to follow a balanced diet that provides carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, a diet that contributes to our well-being and can help us have better physical performance. The energy for physical activity comes from macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nutrients that are also important for other functions of the body, but their metabolism also requires vitamins and minerals. 

Eliminating or reducing consumption beyond specific quantities of macro and micronutrients could lead to metabolic imbalances and malnutrition. For physical activity, whether it is sport or for weight control, there is no need for particular quantities of proteins or the drastic reduction of fats and carbohydrates. To achieve better performance or reduce fat mass, it is necessary to know how macronutrients are used. To produce energy and how to remove fats from adipose tissue.

Beneficial Fats For Physical Activity

The body needs all types of fats: saturated, short-chain saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Introducing insufficient quantities can reduce the concentration of hormones helpful in increasing muscle mass and for activating other functions, such as the metabolism of fat-soluble vitamins A, D and E. Some foods that provide fats, both vegetable and animal, also contain nutrients that are very useful for ‘physical activity. 

This is the case with soy, which, in addition to having good fats, also provides good proteins, or cheeses such as Grana Padano DOP, which offers proteins of high biological value with the nine essential amino acids, including the three branched ones: leucine, isoleucine and valine, very useful for those who play sports because they give immediate energy and repair muscles damaged by exercise, as well as promoting the reduction of fat mass in the case of overweight.

Which Intensity Most Promotes Fat Burning?

Low-intensity training is what promotes the most fantastic fat burning. When the body uses mainly fats as fuel, the available metabolic power is less than when sugars are used because the metabolism of fats is longer and slower. Thus, for example, during a quiet walk, the primary fuel (for at least 70-80 per cent of the energy needed ) is represented by the fatty acids circulating in the blood and the rest of the energy is covered by intramuscular triglycerides, muscle glycogen and glucose circulating.  In vigorous aerobic activity, power is supplied mainly by muscle glycogen (around 60-70 per cent). As intensity increases, the use of sugars, mainly represented by muscle glycogen, increases, and, at the same time, fat oxidation decreases. The latter reduces to almost zero at around 90 per cent of the maximum heart rate.

How Much Time Is Required To Consume Fat?

During physical activity, circulating fatty acids are used (consumed) as they are gradually taken from adipose tissue. This means that fats can only be increasingly used as fuel several minutes into the exercise. This time is necessary to ensure that the fatty acids from the adipose tissue can be mobilized (through adrenaline-mediated lipolysis), transported by the blood and reach the muscles (entering the mitochondria) to be used as energy. This means that if the exercise is of relatively short duration, for example, less than 10 minutes, the muscles significantly consume the sugars already present in the muscle tissues, even at the lowest intensities, and not the fats.

What Is The Best Physical Activity To Consume Fat?

In general, these are activities performed at low intensity. Still, it also depends on the type of training: highly trained athletes in endurance disciplines (cycling, marathon, skiing, cross-country swimming) are able to use fats for energy even at high intensities. Sedentary or poorly trained people could use fats very little and use sugars even at moderate intensities. Maximum fat consumption should be just below the intensity at which the use of sugars for energy purposes begins to increase (i.e., when breathing during exercise is still calm and you don’t feel “out of breath”).

Consume Fat Even After Exercise

When the exercise is finished, the basal metabolism remains slightly elevated for up to approximately 8-12 hours, about 10-15% higher than usual. Excess energy consumption occurs at the expense of fatty acids and corresponds to 5-15 kcal per hour, i.e. one or two grams of adipose tissue. During the post-activity recovery period, the body tends to save sugars and uses fats to produce energy. This is due to the body’s metabolic priority of replenishing muscle glycogen reserves but also to the minor repairs needed by the musculoskeletal system.

What Is The Role Of Fats In The Physical Exercise Of Overweight People?

During exercise, people who are obese, overweight ( check BMI ), or diabetic show difficulty in releasing (using) fatty acids from adipose tissue. Therefore, in these subjects, glucose consumption is high even at low intensity of aerobic exercise. For these people, it is therefore essential that the intensities at which they engage at the beginning of the exercise therapy program are adequately reduced in order to gradually stimulate the ability to use fats as fuel and, therefore, lose fat mass.

Read Also: Dry Hair: 10 Tips To Combat Damaged Hair