Cardio

[titus_teen]

Does it matter if I do cardio on an empty stomach or not? I have heard you need to eat before hand but then a pal told me only do not eat if you are trying to lose weight.

[ricka182]

Personal preference. It's thought that cardio on an empty stomach, or fasted cardio will force the body to burn fat for energy, as your stores of glycogen would be depleted due to the fasting. To me that makes some sense.

Some days I do fasted cardio, others I may eat something 2-3 hours prior. I need at least 60-90 minutes pre-cardio to let anything I did eat start to digest, else it comes back up or I get tummy cramps.

[Rich Knapp]

Originally Posted by ricka182

Personal preference.

I totaly agree.

[Ryano]

I've heard that intense cardio training on an empty stomach will rapidly deplete glycogen stores, which will cause the body to burn more muscle than fat. It can utilize the muscle faster than fat. You will lose more weight that way, but more muscle than fat. I don't remember where I read this, but it makes sense.

[5kgLifter]

Originally Posted by titus_teen

Does it matter if I do cardio on an empty stomach or not? I have heard you need to eat before hand but then a pal told me only do not eat if you are trying to lose weight.

Gentle cardio (LIT) on an empty stomach is fine; intense cardio (HIIT) on an empty stomach can leave you recovering for hours in addition to affecting the amount of intensity you can apply to the session due to not having the energy reserves for the higher intensity.

The study that was done on fasted cardio, in the mornings, was done on very overweight and out of shape people that had a lot of bodyfat to lose which doesn't mean it equates well to those that do not fall in to that particular category...that's something to bear in mind.

If I'm doing an intense session, I eat; it doesn't affect weight loss negatively, the overall calories versus the overall energy output of the body, over the course of the week, is what affects weight loss one way or the other.

[MVP]

Originally Posted by titus_teen

Does it matter if I do cardio on an empty stomach or not? I have heard you need to eat before hand but then a pal told me only do not eat if you are trying to lose weight.

If you do anaerobic cardio on an empty stomach, you're just going to burn off muscle.

Anaerobic glycosis means you can only burn glucose/glycogen to create ATP. This means if your body doesn't have readily available glucose, it'll just break down muscle tissue.

I'd make sure to get a meal in before running.

[thomasjack]

Before start cardio work out you need to eat some thing, empty stomach work out is not better for healthy. Drink glass of juice for getting energy which better for work out. During work out also eat some fruits like 2 to 3 slice of orange, apple, banana. And after work out eat healthy foods for attain calories.

[emekajokammor]

Originally Posted by 5kgLifter

intense cardio (HIIT) on an empty stomach can leave you recovering for hours in addition to affecting the amount of intensity you can apply to the session due to not having the energy reserves for the higher intensity.

I believe this helped cause me to crash a few weeks ago. Intense fasted cardio, combined with a restricted contest prep diet, not enough rest, etc.

Also begin to affect my training as i was not able to recover as fast as i needed to.

As others said, personal preference, just be careful.

[TitanCT]

no need to kill yourself with cardio.
i pretty much just walk on a treadmill. i've done more, but walking is more than fine. Let your nutrition do the hard work. and i always do my cardio first thing in the morning, fasted, or post workout which is pretty much the same as fasted.

[Brutorious]

Personally I have never had any problem with fasted cardio, though I don't do it often. I tend to run later in the day after the weight training. I would recommend taking some BCAA's or half a protein shake before your cardio if you do prefer fasted cardio, for reasons MVP mentioned above, to just preserve muscle.

I agree if your simply looking to lose bodyfat, let your diet do most of the work. Though the added cardio will let you be a little more loose with it. To me, my body responds better when I add in cardio and I'm also allowing myself to be in better cardiovascular shape along with building strength/muscle.

I follow two general rules: Never ever do any serious cardio before weights and if your doing any sort of sprinting/HIIT/Sports, dont do that on an empty stomach.