What are the main benefits of a fasted work out?

sijomial

For me the benefits were:

I simply got better at doing fasted exercise, which was helpful for scheduling my training into a particular eating pattern or just fitting it into my day.
Got to the stage where fed or fasted felt virtually the same and I performed the same, for both strength training and cardio up to moderate intensity / one hour training sessions.

It also have me a better ability to cycle for longer before needing to feed. That's a bit of a niche benefit and irrelevant if you don't do endurance cardio.

Didn't of course make a scrap of difference to weight or body composition.

For the vast majority of people's regular exercise routines you have plenty of fuel on board already so it comes down to preference, scheduling, avoiding adverse impacts (either way) and it seems a whole load of "feelz".

If you feel you need to fuel yourself from something just eaten then eating might give you a psychological boost even though in every likelihood you haven't digested what you have just eaten anyway.
But there's also people who seem to get a boost from making everything as complex as possible which might involve either fasted exercise or the other extreme of a cocktail of timed eating, PWO, intra workouts, recovery foods etc. etc.

fitoverfortymom

The benefits are I don't have to eat anything before I go out the door at 4:30 am to run and also to avoid runners trots.

MegaMooseEsq

I’m in the “just roll out of bed and do it” camp. I worry that if I sat down for breakfast first I wouldn’t get up again. I’m never really hungry first thing in the AM anyhow.

TechPoppa21

Ive been doing intermittent fasting for a while now and found that my body got over being "hungry" after a couple weeks. I didnt see any downside in my fasted workouts i actually felt better overall and less stressed about "the most important meal of the day". I read that peak fat burning is at the 16 hour fasted state but i usually try to work out first thing in the am.

Fizzypopization

I do 90% of activity when I am under fast. I rarely eat in the mornings. Don't notice any big difference. I'm actually more alert, but thats it.

h1udd

for me, its just good timing, I get straight out of bed, motivation is high, chug a pre-workout (either a branded one or water + caffine or coffee if its -3deg outside) ... then hit the gym .. by the time I have warmed up the caffine has kicked in and BOOM I smash the workout.

But

if I eat first, the lethargy sinks in, I get distracted by other things, like the internet, may family gets up and wants to suck my time out of me, the phone rings etc etc etc

That said ... When I work at home on Wednesdays I do a lunch workout and workout BEFORE eating as well, Mainly so I use lunch as a re-fuel, but mostly when there is no food in my stomach, I am lighter/more mobie can bounce around a lot more with out the drag of food in me

I prefer working out fasting ... makes absolutely no difference to my performance though in terms of power or ability to lift

jefamer2017

I have no energy if I don't eat first.