The Vicious Cycle: From Fat to Fa tter ■ 39■■■
WHY YOU WANT TO BE
A FAT BURNER, NOT A SUGAR BURNERS
ome of you may be thinking, I may eat a lot of starchy carbohydrates, but at the
same meal, I am also eating protein and fat. Why am I just burning sugar and
storing fat? It’s a good question, and it gets to the heart of the vicious cycle.
Let’s assume that you are following the current dietary recommendations
that tell you to eat more than half of your daily calories in the form of carbohy-
drate. You fill your plate with a cup or so of pasta (carbs), topped with meat-
balls (primarily protein and fat), and some tomato sauce and cheese (more
protein and fat). From the moment the pasta enters your mouth, it begins to be
broken down into simple sugar. Your body can only store a small amount of
sugar at a time in the form of glycogen, which is stored in muscle and liver.
What happens to the rest? What’s not stored as glycogen is burned off as
quickly as possible, forcing you to burn sugar, but your cells can only burn so
much off at a time. What happens to the rest of the sugar that isn’t being
stored or burned? It is converted into saturated fat, and we know where that
goes (in all the places that you don’t want it: your hips, thighs, abdomen, and
dangling from your upper arms).
Your cells are busily burning off sugar for fuel, but what about the protein
and fat in your meal? Some of the protein is taken up by your cells for repair
and maintenance, but your cells can only utilize a small amount of protein at a
time. Excess protein is turned into sugar and stored as saturated fat. (That’s
morefat in your tummy, hips, abdomen, upper arms, etc.) Your cells don’t need
to burn it for fuel—they’re still burning off all the sugar from your plateful of
pasta.
That leaves just the fat (from the meat and the cheese). Remember, your
cells are hardwired to burn sugar first, so if your cells are burning off lots of
sugar, the fat in your meal is going to be stored away as.... MORE FAT.
Furthermore, your cells get accustomed to burning a particular fuel. When
you are younger, your metabolism is more flexible, and you can switch fuels
more easily. As you get older, if your cells are used to burning sugar, they will
continue to burn sugar, not fat, when they need fuel. You will need to burn al-
most every gram of sugar that you’ve eaten before you can burn off significant
amounts of fat.■■■