Running on empty - good or bad?

incisor71

Hi folks,

Is it good or bad to do cardio (in my case, high-intensity interval training) first thing in the morning (7am timeframe) without eating anything at all beforehand?

Currently there are two schools of thought whose theories, as I had (cynically) expected, are mutually contradictory:-

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[*]First school: when one has an empty stomach, the only available fuel is fat, and it's better not to eat until later in the morning (say 10am) - as though the workout replaces a meal session. This would lead to increased fat burning.
[*]Second school: on an empty stomach the body uses muscle as the more easily available fuel, as glycogen levels are low due to overnight starvation and fat burning doesn't happen until about 20 minutes into the workout. Although fat burning would still happen, so too would muscle loss, and the latter is something I do not want to happen!
[/list]

Or could it be down to the individual's body composition/genetics as to which is more true, and one must try both to see?

Any ideas/opinions/tales of experience?

DrIndy

Just eat - if you train sensibly and watch your diet, going for the extra edge won't make much of a muchness...... aim for longterm.....

entropi

I'd say eat first, train later. Only 2 days ago in TKD we only done about 5 mins of warmup exercises and the girl next to me almost fainted and had to go home.. reason : she ate nothing beforehand and had no energy reserve to keep her active .

Easygainer

Cardio on an empty stomach is great if you do it right. Just don't go above 65% intensity - I like to just hit the treadmill for 30-45 mins at 5kph and a 15-25 incline. To prevent catabolism, take some bcaas and glutamine (optional but I know where to get them cheap!) or if you're really worried take a whey shake 30 mins before.

Important though that you cut off carbs around 6 pm the night before - this ensures that you have no glycogen in the morning so you're burning fat almost exclusively.

incisor71

Many thanks for your contributions, folks!

joc_06

I'll tell you my results:
I was a crash dieter for yrs. Every April/May id practically stop eating for a few weeks and knock off half a stone or so and all was fine. Then id go back eating and it'd appear asap again. I was obsessed with the scales and rarely saw progress with fat loss hence i thought i had terrible metabolism.
I was just doing it wrong.
Now eat sensibly: oatmeal for brekkie, good dinner at 1, banana b4 training, train hard using HIIT or similiar, and finsh with protein shake and oatmeal flapjack.
This is 2x more than i used to eat but now i have <10% BF and never lose muscle mass.

So my advice to you is not to exercise on an empty stomch. It just isnt good for you and as Easygainer says unless you do it right you will end up burning muscle before fat.
You can do it and see good results but id prefer to do it differently myself. Obviously if you can only train at 7am then it will be tough to eat but in every sport you never play a game at 7am so i see very little reason to train at 7 am if a team sport is your goal. I've found this is an important point in team sports. get a routine going that works and then when game day comes you know exactly when and what to eat and dont go in badly prepared.

copacetic

if you are running at 7am I think it is more a matter of can you eat far
enough ahead to keep it down, if you can do. If it is going to make you
ill don't eat
If not don't worry, try to force down an energy drink or something, do
your workout and then have a decent breakfast.

Training at 7am is needed for some people to get their training in..

kazzer

I like to just hit the treadmill for 30-45 mins at 5kph and a 15-25 incline.

Do you find this effective?

What aout cardio vascular fitness wise, is it any good?

Easygainer

kazzer wrote:

Do you find this effective?

What aout cardio vascular fitness wise, is it any good?

For burning fat it is unbelievable. Again I take 10g glutamine and 5g bcaas pre cardio, whether or not you need a shake is down to the individual.

This is for fat burning though, for which depleted glycogen stores are optimal. For fitness, I would load up on carbs but as I bodybuild I just do this for workouts but the same principles apply. If I were to train for fitness again I would take 3 carb meals with complex carbs before I would think about serious exercise, and if this wasn't possible, one big meal with some sugars immediately pre training and carb drinks like cytosport's one for during traing.

kazzer

Cheers thanks for that

dudara

I suppose a lot of it depends on personal preference. i can't exercise with food in my stomach, cause I feel like I'm going to throw up. I need about 2 hours without food before I exercise. I often exercise at 6, 7 in the evening, when the last thing I ate was at lunchtime.

AARRRGH

Cardio eats into your muscle first anyway. But if you are making good progress in your eyes, stick to whichever method works for you.

incisor71

Once again, thanks folks!

joc_06 wrote:

Obviously if you can only train at 7am then it will be tough to eat but in every sport you never play a game at 7am so i see very little reason to train at 7 am if a team sport is your goal.

The 7am time is mentioned simply because I prefer to get training out of the way for the day - it's not that I enjoy working out as a means of starting the day!

Team sport, me? Or indeed any sport? Nope, I have zero natural physical prowess. So joc_06's observation forced me to think about what my real reasons are for training. So far I can identify three reasons - external appearances, extension of longevity and reaching a lofty goal (i.e., serious improvement of aforementioned physical prowess) that's not related to technology or academia.

zAbbo

dublindude wrote:

Cardio eats into your muscle first anyway.

That go's against everything i've heard so far, muscle stores can be accessed quicker, so at a higher HR they are used, but at a lower fat burning HR, fat stores are used to provide the energy?

Maybe i have it all wrong, but i've been working at around 75% of my max HR to burn fat

kazzer

Cardio eats into your muscle first anyway.

Very dodgy statement. I think I know what your saying though. Cardio will deplete muscle glycogen, but not muscle tissue.

pwd

yeah low intensity training is the best for fat-burning.
mid-intensity best for cardiovascular fitness
and high intensity for ability to exercise at high intensity

DAEDULUS

pwd wrote:

yeah low intensity training is the best for fat-burning.
mid-intensity best for cardiovascular fitness
and high intensity for ability to exercise at high intensity

Explain yourself! Why is low-int better for fat burning..

copacetic

DAEDULUS wrote:

Explain yourself! Why is low-int better for fat burning..

I think he is using the standard 'low intensity exercise burns more
fat argument' which is true as a percentage, as long as you can get
enough oxygen the body will burn fat to fuel the exercise.
Once you reach a certain level of exercise, say 65% of maximum heart rate or so, the body starts burning glycogen which needs less oxyegen to burn.
Since you are no longer providing enough oxygen to burn mostly fat the percentage of fuel that is fat goes down.

HOWEVER, what these people fail to understand is than say 30 mins running
at low intensity might burn 200 kcal of which say 70% is fat so 140kcals of fat is burned. (figures are prob a bit low here)
If you do the same run at higher intensity you will burn more cals of fat even though % fat is less.
eg 30 mins running at 300 kcals of which 60% is provided by fat is still 180kcals of fat burnt.
Any proper exercise book will tell you the same. The 'fitness' books that want to make everything sound easy for begineers always go on about low intensity burns more fat but neglect to mention that is a % not an absolute...

Morpheus

So, which is better,

running slowly for 35-45 minutes to lose the fat, or running at a higher intensity, all this jargon confuses me.

I train once a week in soccer, play match on saturdays, i need to make time to get a run in twice more a week to burn fat, im 5'9" and weigh 12stone. I want to get down to 11.5 stone. im slim enough, just carrying a couple extra pounds that annoys me more than anyone else because i know its there.

I unfortunately cannot train that often in the evenings and now it looks like i will need to be up at 545 to go for a run in the mornings maybe once a week and get one evening in.

Mon - dont do anything in evenings.

Tue - train with mens soccer team

wed - will be coaching womens senior soccer team

thurs - Train with RDF (army reserve) but doenst involve much physical fitness since we only meet for 2 hrs on thurs nites and do theory and practical lessons, i will need to start some weight training for back and arm strength for carrying a GPMG machine gun which im training on now, we do exercises in the army training areas every few weeks,its high intensity stuff and you need to be able to haul a lot of stuff around.

fri - dont do anything as i play match on saturday

sat - play match at 2pm

sun - rest, but could prob get a run in in mornings.

Other options are late night runs like around 1030/11pm but i think thats too late.

work 820 - 500pm and get home at 625pm every evening.

any advice?

BossArky

Morph&#233 wrote: »

Other options are late night runs like around 1030/11pm but i think thats too late.

any advice?

I usually run 5km late at night, around 11pm, 3 times a week: Sun, Wed, Fri. This is for a number of reasons:

1) Too busy during the day to do it any other time
2) Live in central London which is too dangerous to run around in the day time
3) Less exhaust fumes in the air in the evening

I get a good nights sleep after these runs (as I'm knackered) and feel great the next day.

Previously I tried running early in the mornings but it had me falling asleep around 10:30am in the office.

I don't know the pro's and con's of late night running in medical terms, perhaps someone else can elaborate.

quozl

the distance you run is the best metric for how many calories you burn. Not the intensity it's run at. Run at a honestly comfortable pace for as long and as often as you can. If you try to run too fast you won't be able to run for as long so it's most likely counter-productive.

If you have limited time, then running faster will burn more calories in a given time period. But you won't be able to run as long as you could, and you're more likely to injure yourself.

It's about 100 calories a mile, 3500 calories per pound of fat. So 10 miles a week means losing a pound every 3 1/2 weeks if you change nothing else in your life. I'd be losing over a pound a week if I didn't balance it out with extra calories.

Some people don't like late night running because it makes it harder for them to sleep. Only way to see how it agrees with you is to try it yourself. I tend to run after I come home from work and before I eat dinner.

Morpheus

Think i will try a late night run, theres a 3 mile stretch of inner ring road around balbriggan which i can try, its both up and down hill. Hate road running as its bad on the ankles, ive got orthotic supports so ill use them anyway, i usually come home from girlfriends late at night (1045) and cant sleep til midnight, although this always results in me getting only 6 - 6.5 hrs sleep, I find if i take any more than that i wake up and cant get back to sleep.

Degsy

I usually do 30 mins machine hill walking at around 7.6 kph and a varying incline up to 6.4.I do it immediatly after weights as i've heard fat transportation is more efficient then.I've noticed the weight coming off very slowly but steadily(i've got about a stone to lose, pure lard).Should i be doing longer or more often?(my split is three days).