TURN YOUR BODY INTO A FAT BURNER!

AND WE'RE GONNA LET IT BURN!

How do we arrange that we get our energy from our fats and thus become slimmer and healthier? How do we become a fat burner? By leaving sugars and carbohydrates so that your body does not become a sugar burner but has to get the energy in fats. But let us be a bit more specific and explain this further.

Why is it harder for an obese person to lose fat than for a person who exercises regularly to maintain muscle mass?
This has everything to do with metabolic flexibility, it is important for obese people to reduce their carbohydrate intake and exercise more. Duh... we hear you think? That sounds so simple, but how does it work exactly?

We already preach it in the Intermittent Fasting Matchapolitan Lifestyle Course : make sure you have a consistent lifestyle for the first few months without cheating too much. In the long term, you can cheat sometimes, because your metabolism is healthy and balanced.
What happens in your body when it is healthy and balanced? In this situation, your body will be able to give the right priority to nutrients when producing energy.

Stable blood sugar and a proper balance of the ghrelin and leptin hormones ensure metabolic flexibility.

If you are metabolically flexible, your body can easily switch to sugar, fat and protein as an energy source. This keeps you feeling good and fit without having low blood sugar levels.
If your body is not metabolically flexible, it will draw energy from and hold on to sugars and carbohydrates. This will cause fluctuations in your blood sugar levels, which in turn can cause you to experience symptoms such as irritability and energy dips/fatigue for a few hours after a meal.
So we want to keep our focus on stable blood sugar levels through sensitive insulin receptors and a good balance between the ghrelin and leptin hormones (these regulate your hunger and satiety) in order to be metabolically flexible.

Metabolic Flexibility and Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting becomes easier as you begin to lose weight, because people with good health and metabolic flexibility are better able to adapt to changes in diet. As a result, this will definitely give you positive results when you look in the mirror or step on the scale.

People with insulin resistance often have a harder time sticking to a diet because they are not metabolically flexible. The constant energy dips make your body ask for more food, which then leads to a vicious circle of gaining more and more weight.
A lifestyle such as Intermittent Fasting and limiting sugars is recommended to improve insulin sensitivity.

“The more carbs you eat, the hungrier you will feel.” - says Mark Sisson (Mark's Daily Apple)

Metabolic Flexibility and the Ketogenic Diet

A keto lifestyle is good for burning fats, but with a keto lifestyle we also want to create good metabolic flexibility.
The 'keto zone' is good at burning fat when there is fat to burn. The same goes for burning glucose when there is glucose in your body.
So please note, you don't always have to stay in ketosis to experience the benefits. It's all about metabolic flexibility! ;-)

Where do you get your energy from?

It is important to know where you get your energy from, so that you can then take this into account in your diet.

People with good metabolic flexibility can therefore have a diet rich in carbohydrates using glucose as the main source of energy. Although we are not big fans of large amounts of carbohydrates; vegetables, fats and proteins are our preference.

When living an Intermittent Fasting lifestyle, priority may be given to fat as an energy source, so that muscle mass is not used.

When following a keto diet, fats are used as an energy source, while muscle and liver glycogen are spared. Unfortunately, not all people are able to create metabolic flexibility, so it is necessary to optimize your metabolism.

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Glycogen is stored carbohydrates and glucose and is stored in the muscles, liver and brain. When your body needs energy from carbohydrates, the glycogen is converted to glucose to be used quickly by the muscle cells.

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Metabolic flexibility vs. insulin resistance

What do these two have in common? People with insulin resistance (= precursor to type 2 diabetes) and people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes lose more weight on a low-carb diet. But people who are sensitive to insulin (= hormone) lose weight more easily by continuing to eat sugars. But let's say right away that we are absolutely not in favor of sugary meals. This is purely to explain what effect insulin resistance has on your body and how your metabolic flexibility deals with this.

There are several ways to ensure that your insulin does its job properly and thus reduce insulin resistance.

• Intermittent Fasting.
• Ketogenic 'diet'.
• Strength training; strength training increases the size of insulin receptors.
• Interval training.

"You don't have to nail it all the time, enjoy life as well." - says Dr. Lindsay Taylor

Conclusion

Everyone has their own unique story. There is no one guideline for all people, each individual has different goals; from improving endurance to weight loss.

In the end it is of course about how YOU feel and to maintain a constant good feeling. It is therefore important to find out for yourself what works for you, what works for one person does not necessarily work for another. .

To ultimately build metabolic flexibility, so that your body can handle whatever it takes in at all times – whether it's carbs or fats.