I read an interesting article on losing fat without losing muscle. After having tried the low-carb diets years ago and understanding from experience that you have to deplete your glycogen stores, I wondered: Can you lose fat without depleting your glycogen stores? I think the answer is basically no. When you go on a low-carb diet, you first lose about 5 lbs in glycogen and associated water. From then on, you eat little enough that the stores never build back up. The danger here is that you eat so little the body starts breaking down muscle, not just fat. So how does an exercise diet work?
You still have to deplete glycogen stores and then burn calories. In the low-carb diets, the burning is just living. In the diet and exercise method you catch yourself when blood sugar is moderate (1.5 hours after a meal), work out long enough to deplete glycogen, then workout longer to burn fat. Then you replenish for a day or two before you do the cycle again. Because most of the time you are not glycogen depleted you won't be fooled by the initial 5 lb weight loss, and you won
t push your metabolism to the point of slowing because your body fears starvation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieting
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