Best time yo eat breakfast.

msdemena

Hi guys just looking for a bit of advice and I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm trying to shift a few pounds and I already have a fairly good diet and exercise regime and was wondering is it best to eat before or after my morning walk to burn of most calories? At the moment I have a coffee before my walk and have my breakfast when I get back.

boomtown84

msdemena wrote: »

Hi guys just looking for a bit of advice and I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm trying to shift a few pounds and I already have a fairly good diet and exercise regime and was wondering is it best to eat before or after my morning walk to burn of most calories? At the moment I have a coffee before my walk and have my breakfast when I get back.

won't make a difference....just make sure you're consistently eating below maintenance.
eat whenever suits ya.

Rossin

would walking on an empty stomach not burn more fat? or is that belong to mythsville

hsbc

Rossin wrote: »

would walking on an empty stomach not burn more fat? or is that belong to mythsville

Yeah i always wondered that. You hear of boxers getting up and doing their runs at 5am - what do they have for brekkie?? surely they couldn't sit down and have a good breakfast prior to the run? would they just have a protein shake first thing and have something post run? apologies if this is going slightly off topic...

MysticalSoul

The instructor at the gym today told me that I should have breakfast first thing in the morning, and not nearly two hours later when I arrive into work, as I currently do. He did understand my predicament of being up since 5ish though.

Mellor

Rossin wrote: »

would walking on an empty stomach not burn more fat? or is that belong to mythsville

With breakfast before or after, it will convert to energy. Even with breakfast before you are probably still converting it to energy long after you finsih.


Take an extreme and impossible situation,
Empty stomach - you burn 200 cals completely from fat - the rest of your day is at maintainance - net loss of 200 cals (fat)
breekie before - you burn 200 cals from food - the rest of your day runs at 200cals below maintenance - net loss of 200 cals, also from fat

No difference, if you burn fat at one stage, you aren't burning food later, and visa versa

Satanta

I would actually say eat before the exercise. When coming from sleep your body's metabolism has slowed down and could even be in a fasting state where it is catabolic. Eating before exercise (even something small) would kick start your normal metabolism.

hsbc

Satanta wrote: »

I would actually say eat before the exercise. When coming from sleep your body's metabolism has slowed down and could even be in a fasting state where it is catabolic. Eating before exercise (even something small) would kick start your normal metabolism.

So some quick oats with protein would do the trick?

Satanta

Should do the trick yeah. As long as the body's normal metabolic rate is started you'll get the most out of the morning exercise.

d'Oracle

msdemena wrote: »

Hi guys just looking for a bit of advice and I'm sure this has been asked before but I'm trying to shift a few pounds and I already have a fairly good diet and exercise regime and was wondering is it best to eat before or after my morning walk to burn of most calories? At the moment I have a coffee before my walk and have my breakfast when I get back.

Some people swear by fasted cardio. Saying that the body will burn fat to fuel in the absence of glycogen etc.
I don't know myself.

But I reckon two things are vital.
1) actually eat breakfast regardless of when.
2) Eat less for breakfast that you are right now if you want to shed pounds. Try doing it measurably i.e. find out how many calories is in the meal, then eat sufficiently less food to reduce that amount of calories. The same is true for lunch and dinner.

Satanta: Surely what OP wants is her metabolism to be catabolic.
i.e. To break down fat for energy.
Which is a catabolic process, i.e catabolising fat for energy.
I mean, I just wiki'd Catabolism, armed with that your advice makes basically no sense.

Satanta

d'Oracle wrote: »

Satanta: Surely what OP wants is her metabolism to be catabolic.
i.e. To break down fat for energy.
Which is a catabolic process, i.e catabolising fat for energy.
I mean, I just wiki'd Catabolism, armed with that your advice makes basically no sense.

Okay... what I mean is that when the body is in the catabolic or fasting state the metabolism is quite slow and you may not perform as well as you otherwise would and therefore burn less calories during the exercise. And you are converting the body's protein too remember

Eating breakfast before should in theory help lick up the metabolic rate and allow you to burn more calories faster.

By this reasoning you should have a greater calorie output if you eat before breakfast. This is what I was taught. I am open to correction.

d'Oracle

Satanta wrote: »

Okay... what I mean is that when the body is in the catabolic or fasting state the metabolism is quite slow and you may not perform as well as you otherwise would and therefore burn less calories during the exercise. And you are converting the body's protein too remember

Can you provide any proof of this?

See I have a big problem here.
If while having fat stores walking around before eating caused our bodies to consume muscle, then we as a race wouldn't have survived anything near long enough to put a name on Catabolism. It doesn't make any sense. I don't accept that catabolic = fasted.

I have immense trouble finding anything on a "Catabolic state" outside fitness websites, which are traditionally laced with bollox.

I can find reference to Hypercatabolism, but that is usually related to extreme systemic stress or Illness. Which would be when protein gets burned, but even then, there are fat reserves to be used. I don't think fasted cardio much less a brisk walk before breakfast will impart a sufficient stress to cause your body to consume itself.

I also think your assertion that one would burn less calories belies a pretty poor grip on physics. I'm not sure that you can possibly make walking from A to B burn any less calories because you still have to move your body mass at a given rate over a certain distance. You need to expend a certain amount of energy to do so. Bar slowing down, getting lighter or changing to a route of less incline, you can't make it burn any less.

Although I have seen some suggestion that you will burn marginally less energy as your system adapts to the workload. But that has nothing to do with when you eat breakfast.

cc87

d'Oracle wrote: »

I also think your assertion that one would burn less calories belies a pretty poor grip on physics. I'm not sure that you can possibly make walking from A to B burn any less calories because you still have to move your body mass at a given rate over a certain distance. You need to expend a certain amount of energy to do so. Bar slowing down, getting lighter or changing to a route of less incline, you can't make it burn any less.

Maybe thats all that it is. Being slightly heavier having consumed breakfast may lead to a slight increase in energy expenditure

Satanta

d'Oracle wrote: »

Can you provide any proof of this?

I dont have any research papers or anything on the matter. But is it not widely accepted that eating breakfast helps kick start the body's metabolism?

Eith that in mind you should be working with a higher base metabolic rate. With a higher base metabolic rate you will burn more calories just sitting there respiring and pumping blood around your body etc than you would with a lower base metabolic rate. I'm not sure how that fits in with your grip on physics.

With a higher base metabolic rate, would you not also burn more calories during exercise?

If you have the energy to run/walk faster than you otherwise would, even cutting the matter of a couple of mins of a run for example, would you not be burning more calories? Check out Newtons second law of motion

cc87

Satanta wrote: »

I dont have any research papers or anything on the matter. But is it not widely accepted that eating breakfast helps kick start the body's metabolism?

Ive only heard this on cereal ads

Yes eating breakfast has being linked to a healthier body overall, but to assume its due to a raised metabolic rate is quite a jump.

Exercising in a fasted state or after food is a personal choice.
Some people have no problem exercising first thing in the morning without breakfast, others find it difficult to train with an empty stomach and feel hungry the whole time.

rocky

Satanta wrote: »

I dont have any research papers or anything on the matter. But is it not widely accepted that eating breakfast helps kick start the body's metabolism?

It may be widely accepted in Nutrition / Training circles, only because they are not keeping up with the latest research. See myths no.1 and 7 here:

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

Mellor

Satanta wrote: »

Ok
Eating breakfast before should in theory help lick up the metabolic rate and allow you to burn more calories faster.

You metabolic rate may increase, but this is the thermic effect of food not an increase in excercise ability.

By this reasoning you should have a greater calorie output if you eat before breakfast. This is what I was taught. I am open to correction.

But a lower one afterwards, as eating afterwards still produces a thermic effect of food

Satanta wrote: »

But is it not widely accepted that eating breakfast helps kick start the body's metabolism?

It's the kickstart that i ahve a problem with.
You post bascially starts with the assumption that we are catabolic when we wake up. i don't believe we are. For a start, unless our last meal was very early the previous day, our body was prob still digesting food as we went to bed. And our expenditure is pretty ligth when we sleep, so i don't believe our glycogen is pretty low. It's take a reasonable time of activity to go catabolic, not 8 hours of sleep.

Eith that in mind you should be working with a higher base metabolic rate. With a higher base metabolic rate you will burn more calories just sitting there respiring and pumping blood around your body etc than you would with a lower base metabolic rate. I'm not sure how that fits in with your grip on physics.

Wrong.
The thermic effect of food isn't related to BMR. Our total energy is a combination of BMR+thermic effect of food+thermic effect of activity.

You are mis-applying, in my opinion, the fact that prolonged sever calorie reduction reduces BMR. Prolonged, not over night.

If you have the energy to run/walk faster than you otherwise would, even cutting the matter of a couple of mins of a run for example, would you not be burning more calories? Check out Newtons second law of motion

Actually running faster doesn't burn more calories, it burns the same amount of calories, it jsut burns them quicker (as you reach the finish sooner).
And again you are basing this on an assumption that we can run for longer after breakfast. Look it this way, if you eat 20 mins before morning excercise, very little of this food is availible for energy. You'll be burning glycogen that you already had stored.

By the way, Newtons second law is;
A body of mass subject to a force undergoes an acceleration that has the same direction as the force and a magnitude that is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass

Which doesn't apply here at all.


Simply put, food before or after doesn't matter much as you don't ahve to time to convert it. It's not like an athele loading up before an event, which he does hours or days before.
Some people like to ahve something before, others feel sick if they do cardio after eating. Do what you like, I guarantee you, what ever the difference between the two, if any, its having a measureable effect on your proformance or appearance

Satanta

Mellor wrote: »

You metabolic rate may increase, but this is the thermic effect of food not an increase in excercise ability.

Okay. Are we saying that eating before exercise has no effect on our ability to train harder? If it doesnt then fine, but if it does then what is it related to? A more easily convertible source of energy?

You post bascially starts with the assumption that we are catabolic when we wake up. i don't believe we are. For a start, unless our last meal was very early the previous day, our body was prob still digesting food as we went to bed. And our expenditure is pretty ligth when we sleep, so i don't believe our glycogen is pretty low. It's take a reasonable time of activity to go catabolic, not 8 hours of sleep.

I agree my post assumes that. This is what I have been led to believe by fitness experts though. And maybe I am approaching it from the wrong point of view. Anyone that trains to increase or keep muscle mass while keeping fat stores low would also be operating on this assumption. Which is why competition bodybuilders would get up in the middle of the night to eat something with carbs in it. Granted, while preping for a competition they would be on a significant calorie deficit

Actually running faster doesn't burn more calories, it burns the same amount of calories, it jsut burns them quicker (as you reach the finish sooner).
And again you are basing this on an assumption that we can run for longer after breakfast. Look it this way, if you eat 20 mins before morning excercise, very little of this food is availible for energy. You'll be burning glycogen that you already had stored.

I have a problem with the idea that in completing a 10K run in 45 mins requires the same effort (and therefore energy/calories) than running it in 35 mins. I haven't seen any documented proof that it does or doesn't, but would be interested to know either way.

On a related note, there is also a notion that keeping your heart rate within a "fat burning zone" during exercise helps burn off more fat. I guess this would mean that there is an optimum pace to run/exercise at that maximizes calorie expenditure. Or at least maximizes the number of calories taken from the fat stores. I dont particularly buy into it TBH.

By the way, Newtons second law is;
A body of mass subject to a force undergoes an acceleration that has the same direction as the force and a magnitude that is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass

Which doesn't apply here at all.

Meh. Was just replying to d'Oracle's ludicrous statement that to get from pint x to y will always require the same effort. That said applying more force to the object will shorten the time from x to y.

Simply put, food before or after doesn't matter much as you don't ahve to time to convert it. It's not like an athele loading up before an event, which he does hours or days before.
Some people like to ahve something before, others feel sick if they do cardio after eating. Do what you like, I guarantee you, what ever the difference between the two, if any, its having a measureable effect on your proformance or appearance

Agreed. Not sure if any of this has helped the OP
Maybe we should have a poll to see how many would eat before or after. That would be just about as scientific as the rest of this thread.

Mellor

Satanta wrote: »

Okay. Are we saying that eating before exercise has no effect on our ability to train harder? If it doesnt then fine, but if it does then what is it related to? A more easily convertible source of energy?

No im saying that food immediately before training won't be converted by the time we train, we are talking about early AM session, so i imagine people get up, eat and start, they don't sit about for any length of time.

Obvious food hours before provides energy, or very fast acting carbs during long events.

I agree my post assumes that. This is what I have been led to believe by fitness experts though. And maybe I am approaching it from the wrong point of view. Anyone that trains to increase or keep muscle mass while keeping fat stores low would also be operating on this assumption. Which is why competition bodybuilders would get up in the middle of the night to eat something with carbs in it. Granted, while preping for a competition they would be on a significant calorie deficit

What experts? Any study I've seen stats that catabolism take longer than 8 hours to start.

Bodybuilders are not a good example for the rest of the population. Because they have huge amounts of muscle mass, they will go catabolic much easier, this is because their body is trying to regulate their mass with their daily calorie needs.

I have a problem with the idea that in completing a 10K run in 45 mins requires the same effort (and therefore energy/calories) than running it in 35 mins. I haven't seen any documented proof that it does or doesn't, but would be interested to know either way.

Why do you have a problem with that. To get from A to B require energy.
You haven't seen proof? Have you looked?
It's not exactly the same, there are things like EPOC to consider, but its roughly the same.

On a related note, there is also a notion that keeping your heart rate within a "fat burning zone" during exercise helps burn off more fat. I guess this would mean that there is an optimum pace to run/exercise at that maximizes calorie expenditure. Or at least maximizes the number of calories taken from the fat stores. I dont particularly buy into it TBH.

This is another example of you mis-apply a concept. The zone exists, but its a simply a higher ratio from fat during excercise.
It neither maximises calorie expenditure nor does it maximise the calories from fat.

rough example:
fat zone: 200 cals per excercise : 80% from fat = 160 cals of fat
Higher heart rate: 400 cals per excercise : 50% from fat = 200 cals of fat + 200 other calories

Working at a higher rate burns more energy over a given time. Fat may be higher, may be lower it doesn't matter. You body has to regulate all energy used over the day/week etc, where it comes from at that moment isn't a big deal

Meh. Was just replying to d'Oracle's ludicrous statement that to get from pint x to y will always require the same effort. That said applying more force to the object will shorten the time from x to y.

Why is it ludacris? It's completely correct, and is easily proved, and has been.
Working harder means you burn more calories, generating more power, getting to the end quicker, at which point you stop working.
Working hard for a short time = working light for a longer time, why is that hard to grasp?

Rossin

ive decided im going to eat breakfast as i feel better if i do, so i reckon that means ill perform better on my morning run/swim etc. that'll do me

Satanta

Mellor wrote: »

Obvious food hours before provides energy, or very fast acting carbs during long events.

Or fast acting carbs before exercise I guess?

What experts? Any study I've seen stats that catabolism take longer than 8 hours to start.

Okay, I use the term loosely. Paid professional fitness trainers that work in the local gym. Obviously they are not experts. I would be genuinely interested to learn more about this though (maybe a subject for another thread) so could you let me know where to find a couple of those study's? Reason being I follow the advice of the aforementioned trainers and TBH if I thought I didn't need to then there would be allot less effort put into my diet.

Why do you have a problem with that. To get from A to B require energy.
You haven't seen proof? Have you looked?
It's not exactly the same, there are things like EPOC to consider, but its roughly the same.

To get from A to B requires energy, yes. The more effort you put in the more energy you will expend. I dont think this is proportional, and again, please provide any data you have. I have looked and getting from A to B walking takes less calories than running. Article.

As far as EPOC goes, then it would continue for longer after more vigorous exercise therefore minimizing the fact that you stop sooner.

This is another example of you mis-apply a concept. The zone exists, but its a simply a higher ratio from fat during excercise.
It neither maximises calorie expenditure nor does it maximise the calories from fat.

rough example:
fat zone: 200 cals per excercise : 80% from fat = 160 cals of fat
Higher heart rate: 400 cals per excercise : 50% from fat = 200 cals of fat + 200 other calories

I believe I said during exercise. And I also said I didnt buy into it.

Why is it ludacris? It's completely correct, and is easily proved, and has been.
Working harder means you burn more calories, generating more power, getting to the end quicker, at which point you stop working.
Working hard for a short time = working light for a longer time, why is that hard to grasp?

I believe it was a bit ludicrous that, in his words, my "assertion that one would burn less calories belies a pretty poor grip on physics". I find it funny how quickly people make these threads d**k measuring contests.

You should probably have the last word now

d'Oracle

Satanta wrote: »

Meh. Was just replying to d'Oracle's ludicrous statement that to get from pint x to y will always require the same effort. That said applying more force to the object will shorten the time from x to y.

Look, we are talking about a walk before or after breakfast. That was the question. It is activity specific. We are not talking about running.

Satanta wrote: »

I believe it was a bit ludicrous that, in his words, my "assertion that one would burn less calories belies a pretty poor grip on physics". I find it funny how quickly people make these threads d**k measuring contests.

You should probably have the last word now

That is frankly appalling. You have taken one line from my post completely out of context. Your assertion that one would burn less calories doing the an activity (one that we have defined) before breakfast than doing that activity after breakfast IS nonsense and belies a poor grip on the subject matter in general.

Your appalling use of Newtons laws reinforces my point that you don't get the physics.

Your appalling use of the term catabolic suggests a poor grasp on Biology.
Being that OP's Goal is fatloss, a catabolic process.

As for your use of Base Metabolic rate, that's basically nonsense too.

You have demonstrated that you really do not know enough about the subject at all.

Finally this isn't a dick measuring contest. You don't even get that term.
This is people calling you out on the fact that you are just throwing out incorrect scientific terms to sound like you know what you are talking about, when infact you don't.



Rossin, good call.

shootermacg

I personally wouldn't eat before a job but for different reasons. I don't like to run after just eating. So to save time I'd get up run, shower and eat.
I guess a eating a little wouldn't hurt you, but if it's sitting in the tummy digesting that would be a different story. Similar effect as eating before swimming or something like that.

Mellor

Satanta wrote: »

Or fast acting carbs before exercise I guess?

Fast acting carbs are basically sugar, like a sports drink, or a energy gel that runners eat or even a few wine gums.
The fact that you are suggesting sugar as a suitable breakfast for somebody trying to lose weight shows you lost sight of the point here.
So, I don't see the point continuing with you. I was only trying to point out some mistakes in your thinking and help both you and the OP.

OP, looks like you are going to take my advice and do what ever makes you feel best. Good choice and best of luck.