The sleeping beauty – the aerobic system

It’s no secret, I’ve been working on this for a few days now. 

The aerobic system needs re-kindling, well, not everyone’s, but for a lot of us, I included. What is also important is that our bodies learn to run on fat for fuel as much as on carbohydrates. This is what our bodies were used to doing hundreds of thousands of years ago. We all are capable of having a well-trained aerobic system that runs on fat for fuel, according to Dr. Phil Maffetone.

The human diet in the past few decades was mainly based on refined sugars and processed foods. This doesn’t help much. Our bodies constantly burn sugars/carbohydrates for fuel as this is mostly what’s available. It’s easier to turn sugar into (ATP) energy for the body. Glycogen is there for it, and what is left over turns into fat. 

This availability makes burning fat for fuel impossible if you don’t consciously choose to reboot the fat-burning system. Burning fat is a more complex process; fat is burned only if there is no ready available glycogen in our bloodstream.  

How hard is it?

This all means that if you don’t stop eating sugar and other carbohydrates for two weeks and then test your carbohydrate tolerance slowly and systematically, your body will not start burning fat for fuel. 

It takes two weeks of no sugars and no carbohydrates for your body to understand there is no other choice but to burn its stored fat reserves for energy. 

After these two weeks, you can adjust your metabolism according to what it needs, and it would theoretically be able to do both, burn fat for fuel when there is no glycogen available and carbohydrates when you eat them. 

Normal is not normal anymore

Aerobic exercise at a specific heart rate is also needed to reboot that system. The gym and a lot of anaerobic strength and “no pain, no gain” training have also become standard. Low-key, slow pace aerobic exercise is not much of the norm anymore. Even for professional runners, rebooting this system with fat-burning takes two weeks and a few months to get settled. A lot of patience is needed.

The number of people surprised when I say I don’t eat sugar is incredible. People can’t imagine life without sugar anymore. So, I’m testing my willpower for this holiday week, where temptations are all around. So, yea, it can be challenging unless you are into it like me. 

I’m happy to report all is good for the first two days.

If you want to know more about resetting your metabolism, check out The MAF method.