Page 64 - Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon PDF Program

Here is another interesting benefit of exercise while fasting. There are metabolic
pathways that actually help maintain your blood glucose and glycogen levels while
you are fasting, and exercise has a positive effect on these pathways.

During high-intensity exercise your muscles produce a bi-product called ‘lactate’
(sometimes referred to as lactic acid). Lactate has been wrongfully accused of causing
the pain in your muscles when you workout, and something called Delayed Onset
Muscle Soreness - the pain you feel days after your workout. While lactate doesn’t
cause pain, it does help maintain your blood glucose and glycogen levels while you
fast.

When lactate levels build up in your muscles as the result of exercise it can leave the
muscle and travel to the liver where through a process called gluconeogenesis (making
new glucose) it is associated with recovery of glycogen stores. So exercise can help

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maintain blood glucose levels and glycogen stores while a person is fasting.

In fact, it’s not only lactate that helps to maintain your blood glucose and glycogen
levels while you fast. The very act of burning fat also releases something called
‘glycerol’ from your body fat stores. The free fatty acids in your fat stores are ‘attached’
to something called glycerol while it is stored in your body fat. When the fatty acids

are released, so is the glycerol.

(Three fatty acids attached to a glycerol ‘back bone’)

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