Healthy Weight Loss for Permanent Change

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A recent study out of UC Berkeley highlights a key difference in how men and women burn fat.

During exercise women rely more on fat for energy than men. Post exercise, men continue to burn fat longer than women.

There are a couple of fairly simple implications from this study. The first is that women need to maximize fat burning during cardio.  Women may need to exercise a bit longer than men, since they don’t benefit as much post exercise.

Additionally, women should consider the use of a good concentrated DHA/DPA supplement such as Eicosoid70. Supplemental DHA/DPA has been shown to favorably affect hormone balance and promote greater fat metabolism in women.

Since men tend to burn fat longer post exercise, men may benefit from an additional 30 to 45 minutes of fasting post exercise. The challenge with prolonged fasting is to prevent muscle breakdown. Additional glutamine and branched chains have been shown to prevent muscle breakdown during prolonged fasting, so readers may want to give a look to something like our Glutamine and Branch Chain 1000.

Rule of Thumb: Women ad 15 more minutes of cardio and ad some DHA/DPA. Men wait an extra 30 minutes after cardio exercise and throw in some branch chains and glutamine.

Reference:
Lipolysis and free fatty acid metabolism in men and women during the post-exercise recovery period.

Henderson GC, Fattor JA, Horning MA, Faghihnia N, Johnson ML, Mau T, Zeitoun ML, Brooks GA.