Fasted training pre breakfast

Cyclist101

Anyone aware of any advice suggesting fasted training pre breakfast is bad for you or needs to be built up very gradually.

Tried it a few mornings recently and subsequently woke up one morning feeling dizzy, before I had even trained

colm_gti

Have you got a reasonable level of base fitness? I.e. have you ridden a bike a good bit before?

What distance are you doing pre-breakfast?

doozerie

The general advice is to build up gradually to fasted rides, but how gradually depends on how fit you are, the duration and intensity of the ride, etc. (as per colm-gti's post).

You could start by having your usual breakfast and taking your usual food with you on the bike but waiting for longer until you eat any of it. Push that time out further each time and at some point either reduce or eliminate your breakfast too. That should be quite a "safe" way of working up to a completely fasted ride.

Feeling dizzy would be a concern though, the cause there could be anything from something "simple" (to resolve) like dehydration to something more concerning like low blood pressure. Perhaps the dizzyness is something you can deal with by tweaking your diet, training, recovery, etc., but it might warrant medical advice just to be on the safe side.

Cyclist101

Thanks guys. I'm just an enthusiastic newbie and not very fit, so perhaps I'm overdoing it with 1 hr fasted level 2 rides

ford2600

Cyclist101 wrote: »

Thanks guys. I'm just an enthusiastic newbie and not very fit, so perhaps I'm overdoing it with 1 hr fasted level 2 rides

Try fasted on a sedentary morning to see how you go. Just have water/coffee.

Have you much sugar/ high GL foods in your diet? What's your reason for fasted training?

GiantRosa

Fasted exercise is for weight loss and is done at an intensity below fat metabolism threshold. Drink water intially on waking for hydration and kick start your metabolism. Coffee can give you energy. But like any conditioning it's a gradual progression.

nilhg

There are 2 variations on the fasted training pre breakfast theme that I'm aware of, the first which I use myself is 30 to 40km (an hour to an hour and 20 minutes) at a brisk to vigorous pace, generally there would be no sensation of being hungry on the bike, I'd never bring food with me, just a water bottle but when you get home your system and metabolism is up and running and stays that way till lunchtime or after, I'd eat a normal breakfast when I get home.

The other fasted training rides that I know some others here use are much longer, slower (depends on the individual there) and really designed to mobilise the body's fat stores as fuel, I've never done one but I think these spins would be much longer and would involve maybe having small snacks on the bike rather than stopping for a big meal, somebody more experienced than me will hopefully comment and add a bit more detail.

doozerie

GiantRosa wrote: »

Fasted exercise is for weight loss

That's one reason to do it but it's by no means the only reason. From what I understand, fasted training is popular amongst professional and amateur endurance athletes across a range of sports, including cycling, and I reckon that few of them are in need of losing weight so that aspect of fasted training is perhaps the last thing they are looking to achieve.

doozerie

nilhg wrote: »

There are 2 variations on the fasted training pre breakfast theme that I'm aware of, the first which I use myself is 30 to 40km (an hour to an hour and 20 minutes) at a brisk to vigorous pace, generally there would be no sensation of being hungry on the bike, I'd never bring food with me, just a water bottle but when you get home your system and metabolism is up and running and stays that way till lunchtime or after, I'd eat a normal breakfast when I get home.

The other fasted training rides that I know some others here use are much longer, slower (depends on the individual there) and really designed to mobilise the body's fat stores as fuel, I've never done one but I think these spins would be much longer and would involve maybe having small snacks on the bike rather than stopping for a big meal, somebody more experienced than me will hopefully comment and add a bit more detail.

In my case I did all of my winter rides fasted, I both ate no breakfast and ate nothing on the bike either (I drank water with a couple of pinches of salt in it, on the bike). Those rides were mostly low intensity, lasting anywhere from 3 to 5 hours. I only did one ride per week.

I continued the fasted rides into what we laughingly called Spring. The intensity increased for these rides, the duration was between 3 and 4 hours. Again I only did one ride per week.

Post-training nutrition is important but it is perhaps even more important after a fasted ride to ensure you eat "well", otherwise you are even more likely to just run yourself down.

GiantRosa

doozerie wrote: »

That's one reason to do it but it's by no means the only reason. From what I understand, fasted training is popular amongst professional and amateur endurance athletes across a range of sports, including cycling, and I reckon that few of them are in need of losing weight so that aspect of fasted training is perhaps the last thing they are looking to achieve.

Pro's tend to put on kilos in the off season to boost immune system and allow them to train in preseason without getting sick. Then closer to major race goals they try to lose 2,3 kilos when most of the major blocks of training is done.
Increasing the length of time at fat metabolism is another benefit.

ford2600

nilhg wrote: »

The other fasted training rides that I know some others here use are much longer, slower (depends on the individual there) and really designed to mobilise the body's fat stores as fuel, I've never done one but I think these spins would be much longer and would involve maybe having small snacks on the bike rather than stopping for a big meal, somebody more experienced than me will hopefully comment and add a bit more detail.

I originally started doing it to adapt my body to run more on fat so as to limit food intake on long rides, now I mainly do it for convenience.

I regularly do a 100km ish ride with about 1000m climbing at 26/27kmh in a fasted state and am never hungry at end. I've gotten to 130-140 a few times but have never tried to go beyond that. Where I struggled this winter was a a few 200km spin and one 260; I'm not sure what is best time to start eating, 130ish seems a bit late, butwith so many variables any day on a bike it is hard to say.

I did a lot of mtb rides in early winter, which is a much higher intensity, and 3hr rides where no problem.

As @doozerie says you need to eat properly after, no bother there!

nilhg

doozerie wrote: »

In my case I did all of my winter rides fasted, I both ate no breakfast and ate nothing on the bike either (I drank water with a couple of pinches of salt in it, on the bike). Those rides were mostly low intensity, lasting anywhere from 3 to 5 hours. I only did one ride per week.

I continued the fasted rides into what we laughingly called Spring. The intensity increased for these rides, the duration was between 3 and 4 hours. Again I only did one ride per week.

Post-training nutrition is important but it is perhaps even more important after a fasted ride to ensure you eat "well", otherwise you are even more likely to just run yourself down.

ford2600 wrote: »

I originally started doing it to adapt my body to run more on fat so as to limit food intake on long rides, now I mainly do it for convenience.

I regularly do a 100km ish ride with about 1000m climbing at 26/27kmh in a fasted state and am never hungry at end. I've gotten to 130-140 a few times but have never tried to go beyond that. Where I struggled this winter was a a few 200km spin and one 260; I'm not sure what is best time to start eating, 130ish seems a bit late, butwith so many variables any day on a bike it is hard to say.

I did a lot of mtb rides in early winter, which is a much higher intensity, and 3hr rides where no problem.

As @doozerie says you need to eat properly after, no bother there!

I understand completely what you guys are doing and why you do it, not sure it's for me but that's another days work, just often when threads like these come up you get folk saying "oh you have to do fasted rides, no matter what the duration, in the fat burning zone" , for short spins and especially for people who want to lose weight I just don't think that's necessarily the right advice, getting up and doing a brisk to vigorous spin before the body throws resources at digesting breakfast (and often also the rigours of family/work life) seems to work to get the system up and running at full whack for the day, that's a personal opinion though, others may find different.

@ford2600, I wouldn't mind cycling fasted to yours for breakfast some day...

ford2600

nilhg wrote: »

I understand completely what you guys are doing and why you do it, not sure it's for me but that's another days work, just often when threads like these come up you get folk saying "oh you have to do fasted rides, no matter what the duration, in the fat burning zone" , for short spins and especially for people who want to lose weight I just don't think that's necessarily the right advice, getting up and doing a brisk to vigorous spin before the body throws resources at digesting breakfast (and often also the rigours of family/work life) seems to work to get the system up and running at full whack for the day, that's a personal opinion though, others may find different.

@ford2600, I wouldn't mind cycling fasted to yours for breakfast some day...

Photo only show the second course(fruit, seeds and cream), and you can't see the 70/80g ish of added fat between coconut fat, butter and olive oil so be careful what you ask for. If I don't eat like that I feel more hungry than normal for a day or two after.

I don't disagree with anything your saying on weight loss. A hard hour on bike or in gym is a brilliant way to start the day.

Dairy farmers have it sussed for generations, eat the breakfast(a fry) after milking and herding cows. We are only reinventing the wheel :-)

colm_gti

I train fasted monday to Friday for one simple reason...I'd rather spend more time in bed than eating before a ride...

specialCK

Drink a glass of water (warm is better) and a coffee if possible. Get going on the bike AS SOON AS YOU CAN after getting up.

I ride every morning to work fasted, but it took me about two of so years to be fit enough to do that.