Exercising in the AM on an empty stomach?

NSP85
NSP85 Posts: 27
in Fitness and Exercise
Yesterday I attended this activity fair at my local community centre. I sat in on a 'Weight loss myths' seminar and was suprised to hear the doctor tell people that the best time to eat was the AM and on an empty stomach. She said I should get up and go because it will help me lose more weight and I should try it.

Now I've just started a 10k running clinic and the fitness experts recommend we drink water and have something small to fuel our systems before our runs.

What's the deal with nutritionist and fitness experts contradicting themselves? The Doctor running the seminar said I should try it out and see how my weight loss goes...but i'm hesistant as I want to make sure I have enough energy/fuel to get through my runs.

What do you think?

Replies

  • wellbert
    wellbert Posts: 3,924 Member
    They all have different opinions of course.

    That said, I love fasted exercise. I don't think I'd do any kind of endurance exercise that way though.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    They aren't contradicted themselves. You are just mistakenly applying the term "experts". It is always a problem when a lecture on "fitness myths" present more myths. Kind of like when instant reply still gets the call wrong.

    Anyone who says that "fasted cardio" helps promote weight loss is wrong. So that takes care of one side of the "contradiction".

    (Fasted cardio is "possible", but that doesn't mean it has any significant effect on fat loss).

    Your body needs fuel to satisfactorily complete a workout. More intense workouts require that more "fast-acting" fuel be available--and this means stored glycogen or circulating blood glucose. Less intense workouts can rely on beta oxidation (fatty acids) for a larger share of the fuel because, with fats, energy is produced more slowly and with less intense workouts the demand for fuel is at a lower rate.

    Other factors include:

    Individual variations in metabolism.
    Training history for the previous days.
    Eating pattern for the previous day.

    We have a considerable amount of stored fuel, so the average person is not going to work hard enough to exhaust their supply.

    And you have a number of factors dictating what fuel substrate is needed. So, pretty much everyone is going to have "personal evidence" about "what works".

    On average (and I stress the work "average"), the more intense the workout, the more advantageous a preworkout "feeding".
    The less intense, the easier it is to workout in a "fasted" state.

    But either way, it makes no difference for weight loss.

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