What is ATP and how does it work?

Let’s look at what type of fuel—either carbohydrate or fat—the body burns during exercise, and why.

Here’s how the process works:

Muscle contractions require a unique chemical energy source called Adenosine Triphosphate or ATP. For this illustration let’s say ATP stands for At The Pump, because Adenosine Triphosphate actually makes the decision as to which fuel the muscle gets, based on what it needs at the time.

When the engine starts running, the ATP starts pumping fuel—either carbohydrate or fat.

The muscle prefers fat because it’s a much more efficient energy source and the body has a lot of it.

HOWEVER, if the muscles can’t get the fat they prefer, the ATP (enzymes) switch to carbohydrate.

Here’s the dilemma: When you begin exercising aerobically, (to get your heart rate up), the ATP can’t get the fat fast enough, so it switches to stored carbohydrates.

Question: Which of the following burns more fat; moderate aerobic exercise, or sitting and watching TV? Answer: (B) Sitting and watching TV

The primary fuel used to keep the body warm is fat. When you’re sitting in a chair fat provides about 70 percent of the calories needed to keep the body warm and functioning.

Get out of your chair and increase your activity and the demand for ATP (or fuel to those muscles) goes up. It wants the fat—but if you’re moving too quickly—it switches to carbohydrate instead.

 Dr. Barry Sears, who is a Biochemist, said the following related to burning fat and aerobic exercise: “Current mythology has it that the only way to burn fat is through aerobic exercise—they’re dead wrong! Though anaerobic exercise doesn’t access fat directly—it has a powerful indirect effect on the fat burning process…if the intensity of the anaerobic workout is high enough it causes the body to release human growth hormone…one of the most powerful fat-burning hormones in the body.”

In Daniel Rudman’s study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, older men who were injected with human growth hormone for six months lost body fat and gained lean body mass. In fact, the researcher stated that in terms of body composition, it was as if the old men were now fifteen years younger. There are scientific studies showing that injections of human growth hormone are something like an elixir of youth—even for people over sixty-five.

You don’t have to inject human growth hormone to burn fat and build muscle. God has already placed it in our body. All you have to do to access it is exercise anaerobically with intensity!