Page 60 - Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon PDF Program

Fasting and Exercise

Your muscle cells have the ability to store sugar in a modified form called

glycogen. The interesting thing about this process is that your muscles lack the ability
to pass this stored sugar back into the blood stream. In other words, once a muscle
has stored up some glycogen, it can only be burned by that muscle and cannot be
sent off for use by other parts of your body.

For example you’re the glycogen stored in your right leg muscles can only be used by

your right leg muscles. It cannot be donated to your liver, brain or any other part of
your body. This basic rule goes for all of your muscles. This is in contrast to how your
liver works. Your liver stores glycogen specifically for the purpose of feeding your
organs, brain, and other muscles as needed.

During a period of fasting, the systems of your body are relying on fat and the sugar
that is stored in your liver for energy. Your muscles still have their own sugar that
they need for exercising. The sugar in your muscles is used up quickly during high
intensity exercises like weight training and sprinting, but even a few consecutive days
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of fasting in the absence of exercise has little effect on muscle glycogen content. By
doing so, your muscle glycogen is truly reserved for the energy needs of exercise.

Generally, research has found that any effect that brief periods of fasting has on
exercise performance is small. Research completed in 1987 found that a three and a-

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