Morning Cardio: After eating or on an empty stomach?

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  • jagoochie
    jagoochie Posts: 218 Member
    as i try and fit in a 35 min cardio firstthing at 6am before work i get up from bed and work out straight away - i havnt time to have breakfast before as it would make me feel sick boucning around on a stomach full of food. so i do my am cardio on an empty stomach but it is only 35 mins worth
  • DebbieMullin
    DebbieMullin Posts: 4 Member
    You have been fasting all night and should eat within 30 minutes of waking.
  • pyrowill
    pyrowill Posts: 1,163 Member
    "For the lean trying to get very lean (15% body fat or less for men, 22% or less for women), various strategies, including fasted cardio are probably going to be required to offset the mobization and blood flow defects. That’s why that specific group found decades ago that fasted morning cardio worked best. And why I wrote The Stubborn Fat Solution since it deals with how to overcome all of the problems.

    But for folks who aren’t that lean yet, the folks in the middle range of body fat levels, it really doesn’t matter. The best time to do cardio will be whenever it will most consistently get done. If that’s first thing in the morning, fantastic. If not, also fantastic. It’s more important in this situation that it gets done than when it gets done."

    www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/fasted-cardio-and-fat-loss-qa.html

    Well said!!
  • aoede
    aoede Posts: 30 Member
    It doesn't matter.

    I am interested in those studies you mentioned, because if you google this the whole first page of results is about how people just don't burn muscle (this is a myth).

    When your blood sugar gets too low, your body takes the energy it needs from fat. It will only take energy from the glycerin cells in muscle (not the muscle tissue itself) after it takes it from the fat and there is none left! So, if you have eaten, your energy will come from the food you just ate, as it is in your bloodstream and not absorbed yet. If you haven't eaten, the energy will come from fat. In both cases when you do eat, the calories stored as fat.

    So basically, it is the same either way in terms of net amount eaten/burned. Just do what feels better for you (you might get more tired on an empty stomach, but I find I get cramps if I do cardio within an hour and a half of eating).
  • sld_6001
    sld_6001 Posts: 27 Member
    i usually work out in the evenings before supper/dinner but when i do work out in the morning i always grab a little something to eat before i head to the gym. so about 30mins prior to working out, i have about 100-150 calorie snack.
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