one from students and executives to children and adults at all ages.
To avoid fatigue and instead access unlimited energy from your
fat-burning system, two things must occur. First, you need to develop
and utilize the body’s aerobic system. Second, you need to provide
that system with the proper fuel in the form of food. These items are
discussed in the coming chapters.
To maintain efficient fat-burning, you also must burn some sugar.
Herein lies another example of balance. Both fat and sugar are almost
always being burned for energy at all times. It’s a question of how
much of each we use. Right now, you may be getting half of your
energy from fat and half from sugar. When you improve your aerobic
system and fat-burning capabilities, you may be able to obtain 70 per-
cent of your energy from fat and 30 percent from sugar. But many
people only get 10 percent of their energy from fat, forcing a full 90
percent to come from sugar. That’s a very inefficient and unhealthy
way to get energy. This is the typical situation in people who are
fatigued and attempt to obtain more energy from sugar because they
can’t get much from fat. And when fat is not used for energy, it is
stored in the body. This book explains how to reverse this situation
and improve your fat-burning system.
This mix of fuels used for energy can be easily measured in a per-
son, and is something I have done during my years in practice and
during other research. So when I say you can improve your fat-burn-
ing capability, it is because I have seen and recorded these changes in
actual patients. These measurements are taken using a gas analyzer,
which measures the amount of oxygen a person inhales and the
amount of carbon dioxide exhaled. The ratio of carbon dioxide to oxy-
gen gives the percentage of fat and sugar that is used for energy. This
is referred to as the respiratory quotient, or RQ. I usually don’t recom-
mend getting tested because for most people, when fat-burning is
poor, there are plenty of signs and symptoms. These include the obvi-
ous — increased fat storage. Others include fatigue, blood sugar prob-
lems, hormone imbalance, poor circulation and even common physi-
cal injuries. Others are discussed throughout this book. In general, as
fat-burning improves the body is able to correct many of its own
problems. The bottom line — more fat-burning improves health, fit-
ness and human performance.
UNLIMITED PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ENERGY • 17