What is your energy balance?
Your energy balance is the ratio between your energy intake (= food) and your energy expenditure.
Positive energy balance
When we burn fewer calories than we take in, we speak of a positive energy balance. In that case your body will store the excess energy as fat.
Negative energy balance
When we burn more calories than we take in, we speak of a negative energy balance. In that case your body will draw on the previously stored energy. In an ideal world, our body takes this from fat cells, but when your diet, training or recovery are not optimal, your body can also use your muscles for this. This is obviously not what we want!
Balanced energy balance
A third possibility is that your energy balance is perfectly balanced. In this case we burn exactly as many calories as we take in. We are eating at maintenance in that case.
It is however a utopia to think we can calculate this perfectly.
Bart Vandenbussche is passionate about sport and never shies away from a sporting challenge. He has run several marathons (including sub-3h), is an Iron+Ultra Viking, and currently has the Hyrox bug.
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