Are you trying to lose weight? Do you incorporate work out plans and a balanced diet into your weight loss program? Or, are you on a harsh caloric restrictive diet or a super low carbohydrate diet? If so, the chances are very high that you may be burning your muscles for energy instead of fat. Losing too much muscle is dangerous and could be fatal. Do know that your heart is a muscle? Does this statement set off an alarm in your head?
Your body is like an engine that must burn fuel to function. The engine is muscle. The fuels are fat, carbohydrate (glucose), and, under certain circumstances, protein. Whenever fat is burned, ketones are found in the blood and urine.
Some people mistakenly think ketones are a sort of miracle that melts fat from the body... regardless how much a person eats. This is simply untrue. Ketones are the result of the metabolism of fat. Their presence indicates that you are burning fat.
Ketones are result of the metabolism of fat in the body. They are created when fat is used for energy by the muscles. They are acids known as ketone bodies. There are three kinds of acids produced. Beta-hydroxybutyric acid, aceto-acetic acid, and acetone. The role they play in your body, doesn't require you to be a chemist.
The levels of ketones in people who consume low carbohydrates are just barely above normal. This should tell you that ketones produced from this eating program isn't burning much in the way of fat and risks burning muscle instead. People lose weight on low-carbohydrate diets because they have cut out a large food group from what they eat. As a result, they take in fewer calories.
Fat is like a high octane fuel. A gram of fat has 9 calories, whereas glucose has only four calories per gram. You get more energy per gram of fat burned. But there is a catch to burning fat.
To burn fat effectively, with very little "exhaust," you have to burn glucose (carbohydrate). If glucose isn't available for fuel, you will form ketones when your muscles burn fat.
Lean people who are efficient at burning fat, people who are losing weight, and people who do endurance exercises, deplete their stores of glucose rather quickly. It is then that they develop ketones in the blood. Higher ketone levels usually last for a few hours after the exercise event.
If aceto-acetic acid is not used within five hours, the body will usually excrete the resulting acetone in urine or respiration. The breath may have an odor that is fruity or smell like alcohol as the acetone exits the body through breathing. This should not be confused with Type I diabetes and ketoacidosis.
A popular idea about ketones and controlled carbohydrate intake, is that they suppress appetite. A few scientists think that the excess fat a person eats while on a low carbohydrates, has a satisfying effect, which results in less eating. Then there are experts who credit an elevated level of ketones as causing a decrease in appetite. And finally, there are others who believe a high protein intake suppresses appetite. Thus far, research on the effect of ketones on appetite is inconclusive.
It should be evident to you by now that increasing your activity level will lessen your store of available glucose and begin to manufacture ketones to burn fat as an energy source. The best way to raise your ketone levels for an extended time is through exercise.
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