Research
Macro partitioning
Females oxidize proportionately more lipid and less carbohydrate and protein (leucine) than males during moderate-intensity endurance exercise.
Women tend to burn more fat and spare more protein than men during moderate cardio. This is a natural metabolic adaptation. You do not need to force high protein intake or high carb intake specifically for cardio recovery if you are exercising at moderate intensities.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Females oxidized proportionately more lipid and less carbohydrate during exercise compared with males.
Why this rating
Consistent with previous literature cited; measured via RER and isotopic tracing.
Source
Endurance exercise training attenuates leucine oxidation and BCOAD activation during exercise in humans
S. McKenzie et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism · 2000
DOI 10.1152/ajpendo.2000.278.4.e580
rct · n=12Cited 217×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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