Thought I'd share this article: Phys Ed: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast
Some excerpts:
The men who ate breakfast before exercising gained weight, too, although only about half as much as the control group. Like those sedentary big eaters, however, they had become more insulin-resistant and were storing a greater amount of fat in their muscles.
Only the group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight and showed no signs of insulin resistance. They also burned the fat they were taking in more efficiently. “Our current data,” the study’s authors wrote, “indicate that exercise training in the fasted state is more effective than exercise in the carbohydrate-fed state to stimulate glucose tolerance despite a hypercaloric high-fat diet.”
Just how exercising before breakfast blunts the deleterious effects of overindulging is not completely understood, although this study points toward several intriguing explanations. For one, as has been known for some time, exercising in a fasted state (usually possible only before breakfast), coaxes the body to burn a greater percentage of fat for fuel during vigorous exercise, instead of relying primarily on carbohydrates. When you burn fat, you obviously don’t store it in your muscles. In “our study, only the fasted group demonstrated beneficial metabolic adaptations, which eventually may enhance oxidative fatty acid turnover,” said Peter Hespel, Ph.D., a professor in the Research Center for Exercise and Health at Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and senior author of the study.
At the same time, the fasting group showed increased levels of a muscle protein that “is responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose transport in muscle and thus plays a pivotal role in regulation of insulin sensitivity,” Dr Hespel said.
In other words, working out before breakfast directly combated the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.
Comments
Interesting! I will have to
Interesting! I will have to try that, if I can ever get myself to bed earlier.
I think it's also important to note that simply eating breakfast is very important for weight management (http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/lose-weight-eat-breakfast). Skipping breakfast messes with one's metabolism and usually causes people to binge in the evening with more food/snacks. Eat breakfast, the most important meal of the day!
http://httpremix.com
Interesting. This morning I
Interesting. This morning I did my first run before breakfast. Not trying to lose weight, but trying to reduce the number of hours in the morning where I'm sluggish.
It was painful.
that means it's working :) I
that means it's working :)
I used to work at a nutritional supplement producer, and one of the staff scientists explained to me that the body absorbs better after exercise which is why our body building powders always instructed one to consume them AFTER working out. I would guess the same holds true for the nutrition contained in breakfast.
First
First one always is. :-)
Sprinting vs Jogging
Glad someone posted about this. Running is the first thing I do when I wake. I run just under 1.5 miles, so this is just a jog, but it's still tiring. I have recently read an article by a guy called Michael Paladin, who said that in order to activate your growth hormones, you need to actually sprint rather then jog, and sustain it for at least 8 seconds. He recommended performing these sprint bursts, without even jogging in between them. I guess this is some "type" of HIIT (High-intensity interval training). He also claims that just jogging might actually reduce your testosterone levels rather than boost them.
HIIT
Sprinting causes muscle growth and fat loss. Long distance running causes fat loss and potentially also muscle loss, depending on distance. You can see this in the body types of Olympic sprinters vs. marathon runners.
High-intensity anything - running, swimming, strength training, sport, etc. - is the key to improving fitness, because it forces adaptation. Your body is operating at the edge of its capabilities, so it will adapt in order to be able to handle that level of intensity more comfortably. Moderate or low-intensity exercise doesn't force adaptation, it just burns calories. There's nothing wrong with that, but you have to do it forever.
However, if your body becomes fitter (increased capillary density and/or increased muscle mass), your metabolism will be higher and you will burn more calories even while resting, which means you will become naturally lean.
High intensity training is therefore a time-saver in both the short term and long term, and will give the best overall result.
Post-Anaerobic Workout. Keeps burning fat?
Thanks Mossy. I have also heard that a heavy weight training workout (Anaerobic exercise) actually causes your body to continue burning fat long after the workout. Unfortunately I can't dazzle you with any stats on this subject - like how much weight, reps, time per fat burnt off etc. However, please jump in if you can enlighten me. :)