What's the best way to not burn muscle calories when you run?

Question

eating before wouldnt it cancel out the running after you run it?

Answer 1

Your body doesn't focus on calories from a certain area, it doesn't have cravings based on what excercise your doing i.e. ''oh there sprinting, I really fancy some muscle calories today''. It will get as many calories as it needs from the easiest available source, first from stores within th tissues and blood, then from fat, then it still doesn't have enough it reverts to taking them from muscle. So to ensure you don't burn muscle calories you have to make sure your either eating as many calories as you need or you have enough of a fat reserve for your body to get the calories from there.

''eating before wouldnt it cancel out the running after you run it?'' I don't quite get what you mean by that sorry. You need to take on as many calories as you need, or have a small defecit if sufficient fat supplies are available. Its better to eat before as your body will use those calories, then if it needs more it will resort to fat then muscle; if you eat after your body may have already broken down the muscle for calories, and its always harder to replace than to destroy.

A healthy body fat is about 8% minimum for a normal person most will be around , highly trained and efficient athletes may drop to around 6%, but they also are extremely careful to balance there nutrition perfectly. If you drop too low you place yourself at risk of your muscles being broken down for calories that are required by your body, you need to keep the fat reserve for the case it may be required. (women should add 10% to all the above figures)

Answer 2

Don't over-train. Six days a week maximum, though you may want to do less depending on your own personal goals, body type and overall fitness.

Balance your workout with other kinds of training. Eat a good diet: carbs (fruits and grains) before training, protein, and non-saturated fats after. Eat lots of veggies all the time.

A lot of people think that the less fat on their body the better. This is not true. Although most people suffer from too much fat, some people go too far the other way and want to eliminate ALL body fat.

Fat is basically just stored energy. If you run out of fat to burn then your body will start eating its own muscles (catabolism) to get energy.

Answer 3

You are not going to burn muscle for energy until you have depleted the other systems first. You will need to run for a long time before that happens. If you do intense training it is good to eat at least 12 to 15 grams of protein within 30 minutes of the work out. A combination of protein and carbohydrates in the post-workout meal increases insulin response, which results in more nutrients entering the muscle tissue and therefore, more stored glycogen, which is your major energy reserve for future exercise.

Answer 4

i think the best way to burn fat when you run (or exercise in general) is to use a heart rate monitor and train within the "fat burn zone" -- for me (a 30 yr old 5'5" 140lb female), that is between 140-165 bpm. anything above 165 and i begin to burn muscle. **that range is different for everyone.**
the downside is that running in the "fat burn zone" feels really slow. as you become more efficient with your workouts, you should be able to run faster in your fat burn zone.
there is a lot of material out there on monitoring your heart rate to get specfic results out of your exercise -- definitely recommend learning your fat burn zone and other info, like your anaerobic threshold (AT) - you don't want to overdo it for too long!
hope that helps!

Answer 5

eat a high carb and calorie meal before you run, so you will burn what you ate not your muscle.