Excercising before breakfast

LittleSpy

I try to eat something small with a little protein -- 1/2 a protein bar, greek yogurt, or an egg are my 3 go-tos. I work out pretty hard in the mornings these days, though (30-40 minutes strenuous cardio and 20-30 minutes hard strength training). Then I get some protein in shortly after my workout for recovery.

When I used to just get up and put in 30 minutes on the bike, I rarely ate beforehand. But now that I workout a lot harder, yeah, I have to eat before... and shortly after. And that pretty much stands whether I go to the gym in the morning or at night.
I like to eat. :laugh:

unknownndoll

I prefer to excersize in the morning on a empty stomach before i shower. It is more consistant as others have said and easier for me not to have to figure out something to eat, then wait so i dont get a tummy ache, etc. i just do it, shower and then have my coffee, get ready for the day and so on.

Yurippe

When you work out on an empty stomach you burn fat. When you work out after eating you burn carbs. That being said it doesn't really matter that working out on an empty stomach burns fat since your net calorie deficit is what determines your fat loss anyway.

You are more likely to get in a good workout (and burn more total calories) if you fuel your body with food first. Some people complain about getting an upset stomach if they work out too soon after eating so you might want to wait a 30 min to an hour before working out.

I usually eat a banana or toast about 15 min before a workout and see a higher calorie burn on my HRM when I eat first. I feel slugish and crappy when I try to work out without eating and my calorie burn is always less.

canstey

When you work out on an empty stomach you burn fat. When you work out after eating you burn carbs.

That is an extreme oversimplification. You almost never burn 100% fat or 100% carbs empty stomach or not.

Here is a link to an article that explains the research on this topic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/health/04real.html

The short version is that technically you do burn a negligible amount more fat on an empty stomach but are much more likely to stop exercising early due to fatigue so the net result is less fat burned.

Eat before and workout harder.

determined99

ive been working out in the morning for the last 8 years and i have to admit there is nothing like it! not only i terms of weight loss but its an amazing feeling when you are done for the day, u feel energized and ready to face the day.Also you are more likely to eat healthy all day knowing how much effort you put into your work out in the morning

SassyStef

If you wanna burn the fat you are gonna have to eat something before you work out no matter what time of day. Your body is in a fast over night and store the fat, you need to break that so when you work out in the AM your metabolism gets going and burns the fat.

I have half of a protein shake, or cliff bar before I go then the other half and a banana on the drive home. I love working out in the AM gets my day started and I totally feel energized to care for my daughter. I do nap tho cuz I wake up at 4am lol but it works for me

ErinMarie25

I usually eat before working out because I hate feeling hungry while I work out. It's an uncomfortable feeling. Today though, I worked out before I ate.

TrainingWithTonya

Okay, a little primer on how the body works for fueling any activity (even organ function while sleeping). No matter what you use to fuel the body, it has to be chemically converted to ATP which is what the body actually uses to produce the movement. The first way to produce ATP is the Creatine Phospate--ATP system which can only provide enough ATP for about 60 seconds of movement. It is basically using what little ATP is already in the muscles and creatine phospate to produce a little more. When you jump up to catch a falling baby or run a 40 yard dash or something else that is quick and explosive movement, that is the CP-ATP system. For movement longer then that, you have to use glycolysis, either anaerobic or aerobic. Glycolysis can provide energy for up to 20-30 minutes of exercise. You're basically converting stored glycogen and glucose to ATP. There are three places in the body where you can store glycogen and glucose; glycogen in the liver and muscles and glucose in the blood. The majority of the glycogen is stored in the muscles and the muscles don't share. So, if you aren't using the biceps for example, you can't pull the glycogen from the biceps for the glycolysis process. There is only about 400 calories of glycogen and glucose in the liver and blood to fuel movement, so when you are sleeping, you deplete those before you wake up. When you burn fat, that is done through the Krebs Cycle and Electron Transport Chain. You can't get to those steps in the production of ATP without going through glycolysis. At the end of glycolysis, one of the by-products is Pyruvate. If there is oxygen present, then you can take the Pyruvate on to the Krebs Cycle and Electron Transport Chain to start burning fat. If oxygen isn't available, the pyruvate is converted to lactate (aka lactic acid) and no fat can be burned because you can't go on to the Kreb's Cycle. If you deplete your available glycogen/glucose, then you can't burn fat. So, if the body gets low on glucose/glycogen, like at night when you are sleeping and not replenishing carbs, then the body starts to break down protein to make glycogen/glucose. The only storage source of protein is in the muscles. So, about halfway through your sleep cycle your body releases cortisol to tell the muscles to break down to produce glucose for the blood and glycogen for the liver. When you workout first thing in the morning without eating first, you aren't burning more fat then if you were to workout in the afternoon or evening. You are just breaking down more muscle to burn the same amount of fat from your workout because of a lack of available carbs to start the fat burning process. The loss of muscle is what shows up as a greater weight loss on the scale, which is why the general population tends to believe it is better because they trust the scale. If you don't mind losing muscle, it will help the scale go down faster. If you are looking at wanting to maintain your muscle, however, this is not a good thing. First of all, if you want to look solid and defined, then you have to maintain that muscle. Even if you aren't wanting the body of a bodybuilder, though, you want to maintain that muscle so that you burn more calories at rest because muscle does burn calories at rest just to maintain itself. And the breakdown of muscle to convert protein to glucose/glycogen causes the body to be acidic (The Ketosis that low carb diets talk about.) which can actually damage your organs, specifically the kidneys and liver from trying to get rid of the nitrogen in the protein. To prevent this muscle breakdown, some athletes actually get up in the middle of the night and have a quick carb heavy snack so that they don't have any muscle breakdown in the middle of the night.

So, for those reasons, I actually recommend to my clients to eat something, preferably mostly carbs, about an hour before they workout. That isn't always feasible for everyone, though. Most of the time it is a time constraint that prevents them from having an extra hour to wait before working out. If you can workout right after eating something, that's okay too. You just won't have the carbs available for all of the workout. There are some people, though, who can't workout with anything on their stomach or they get sick. If you are one of those people, you can workout in the morning, but know that you will eventually slow your metabolism from the loss of muscle unless you are doing other things to prevent muscle loss. That will require something like heavy weight lifting later in the day with adequate protein in the diet to build muscle to have it to break down in the mornings.