What's the evolutionary reason for muscle being burned before fat when caloric intake is too low?

[glenn1]

Just curious why this would be. When one's caloric intake is too low, muscle tends to get used as energy before fat. That seems the exact opposite of what would have been a logical evolutionary response....

 

[Keyur]

So we can sit there and slowly die instead of being able to move around and get some food.

Actually, that really seems more like a drawback. So to answer your question, life is stupid.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Because.

<period>

The explanation given to me was that the fat was used to store energy. Muscles burn energy. Therefore the consumers are eliminated before the reserves are.

Perhaps it was because in the winter there was less to hunt so the muscle wasn't needed?

Personally, it doesn't make sense to me either.

 

[Jejunum]

i think the brain requires fat to survive. brain shutdown = certain death.

seems reasonable at least.

 

[illustri]

the answer is in times of starvation there is extreme stress, and stress signals the body to increase adipose tissue at the expense of all other, why? because the human body thinks long term, since fat is the most efficient energy carrier, the more fat reserves you have the longer you should be able to last

 

[Babbles]

The fat contains very little of anything usefull for your body to use. Muscle cell, on the other hand, is fully of yummy goodness that your body can use to function. Amino acids, proteins and the things of that sort.

Basically fat is made out of junk materials and muscles are made out of good materials so when worse comes to worse and your body needs to utilize something to maintain biological functions it uses that source which provides the best materials.

 

[Bootprint]

"Don't Trick Your Body:
If you diet you must keep in mind that dangerously low crash diets (those below 600 calories) trick your body into thinking it is starving. The reason is that human body has a sophisticated survival mechanism to deal with situations like starvation. During dieting, the body feels as though it is in a state of starvation and produces more enzymes to store fat in response to the deprivation of calories.

Instead of burning fat, our metabolism goes into famine mode and is trying to preserve fat stores. Very low calorie dieting can decrease our metabolic rate by 1 to 30 percent, making weight loss more difficult. To make it worse our metabolic rate does not return to normal after you stop dieting because the body believes that another famine might be around the corner. "

 

[illustri]

and i'd like to add at the expense of being cliche-ish, your well developed brain should more than make up for your losing physical strength, so you don't have to brutalize that dinosaur with the club, set a trap instead

/ned flanders: caveman didn't exist

 

[Babbles]

It is interesting how the body functions one way at the cellular level due to evolution but at the pyschological level we know better. We know there is not a famine around the corner, we know that we have easy sources of fats and sugars - perhaps too easy - yet we still have a primative craving for those items.

 

Originally posted by: Babbles
The fat contains very little of anything usefull for your body to use. Muscle cell, on the other hand, is fully of yummy goodness that your body can use to function. Amino acids, proteins and the things of that sort.

Basically fat is made out of junk materials and muscles are made out of good materials so when worse comes to worse and your body needs to utilize something to maintain biological functions it uses that source which provides the best materials.

Do you even know what you are talking about?

 

[Rudee]

Here is the real reason: Muscle is highy metabolic, and requires a significant amount of energy to maintain. Much more than fat. When the body is deprived of nutrients for too long, it tries to rid whatever costs the most (energy wise) to maintain, and that is muscle.

 

[SludgeFactory]

Right, muscle is a metabolic burden. Getting rid of it makes sense if calories are hard to come by.

When one's caloric intake is too low, muscle tends to get used as energy before fat.

Not necessarily. The fatter you are, the less true that is. When there are high amounts of fat reserves on tap and food intake is sufficiently reduced, the body will draw a significant amount of its energy from fat stores. As you get leaner, you have to worry more about muscle loss during a diet.