Exercising on an empty stomach burns muscle instead of fat?!

No, it's not true. It doesn't even make any sense physiologically. The only time you are going to burn muscle tissue is if you are on a starvation diet and have been on it for a long time. If you haven't eaten for several weeks and look like you are a concentration camp inmate then you will burn muscle tissue because there is nothing left to burn.

I thought glycogen stored in the muscles and liver was the energy store that the body uses first.
Unless you are doing an endurance event I don't believe you need to eat before a workout.

What a load of cobblers

mmmm cobbler!

haha i am thankful this is not true! i'd be really backpedaling as of late!

I thought glycogen stored in the muscles and liver was the energy store that the body uses first.
Unless you are doing an endurance event I don't believe you need to eat before a workout.

Yes, this. Then fat and blood sugar. Breaks between sets in weights workouts are to allow the muscle glycogen stores to replenish.

For endurance, it's more complicated and depends on the exertion level and the body's efficiency at converting fuel stores to energy.

I tend to eat before a cardio workout because I deliberately work above the rate where my body can burn fat to fuel it, and I'm not doing cardio to shed fat, I'm doing it to increase endurance. If I wanted to purely burn fat from cardio, I'd spend twice as long at half the exertion level, because that's where my body can burn fat for fuel.

It's slightly different between men and women.

But does it really matter about the science behind it? Don't you want to eat before you work out? you can go with that much more effort and energy when you have something

What's the point if it's just half assed effort and you end up feeling faint and gross?

First of all, how is it different for men vs women? Would love to know this info.

And when it comes to eating first to feel energy, everyone's different -- if I eat anything before a work out (doesn't matter what or how much), I feel sick and sluggish when exercising. I prefer to eat after I workout. And since I'm one of the most muscular women I know, I'm obviously doing something right. If you workout better if you eat before, do that. If you workout harder on an empty stomach, do that. The time you eat isn't as important as what you eat and how much you eat. Yes, timing of meals matters a little bit, but unless you are in training, the little bit won't matter enough to notice.

I use my exercise bike before breakfast a few days a week, I found this article a few months ago, made me feel quite virtuous about my pedaling!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/phys-ed-the-benefits-of-exercising-before-breakfast/

If you eat right before the main thing you do is raise your insulin level and cause the body to burn more glycogen instead of fat. If the purpose of the workout is to build aerobic endurance that reduces the effectiveness of the workout.

It's slightly different between men and women.

But does it really matter about the science behind it? Don't you want to eat before you work out? you can go with that much more effort and energy when you have something

What's the point if it's just half assed effort and you end up feeling faint and gross?

I swim first thing in the morning before lectures. I tend to eat AFTER I've finished. But even eating before the swim I've not noticed any difference to my performance at all.

I base this on the records I keep. I take note of the number of length in an hour, my quickest length time and highest number of continuous lengths.

Peach cobbler! Yummy!

I always workout in a fasted state, because I practice Intermittent fasting.

I will never go back to eating before a workout. I have never had more energy, more strength, and more muscle gain faster than I have training this way, believe it or not...

I don't want to say that, anyone can successfully train fasted. I do agree that we are all different. However, I feel that the majority of the problems people run into when attempting to workout in a fasted stage is simply their "food conditioning", If you will. Basically, I mean that your body and mind have adapted to your eating routine. I fasted many times, and broke all chemical dependencies to food before I ever tried fasted training, so this absolutely helps explain my wonderful results with it.

Regular consumption of refined sugar, and/or caffeine will cause the most problems with being able to function in a fasted state, in my experience. It is definitely something you have to stick with for a few days, maybe even longer sometimes in order to cleanse the body of such chemical dependencies. After you flush all of that out, I bet most people will find it very enjoyable!

Also, New scientific research suggests that fasting raises Human growth Hormone 1500-2000% in males. I don't know if that is 100% positive, but I am gaining muscle quite fast.

Ultimately, you have to step back here and look at things from an evolutionary perspective. If working out in a fasted state really burned all your muscle away, and produced weaker, less efficient results...you wouldn't be here to write about it. We know that our ancestors didn't have 24/7 access to food. A lot of times, they didn't have access to food at all, that is why we are so efficient at storing fat. A nomadic tribe of 30 people might have killed one bison, consumed it all in one big feast and then not had another meal for 3 days. Yet, along the way still having to travel, attempt to hunt, and do manual labor. We see these same patterns in many wild animals. The point is, our bodies were designed to be extremely efficient at fasting and performing simultaneously.