Cardio Timing -1
Is there a best time for weight loss and fat burning?
Most people new to fitness don't realize just how important cardiovascular training is for weight loss and fat burning. And for most people, it doesn’t really matter when you do it - early morning, lunch time, late evening - the bottom line is that you do it! Nonstop exercise, such as walking, running, stair-climbing, or cycling, performed for at least 30 minutes, will burn body fat. Cardio Timing is not that important.
But for those who wish to maximize fat burning, cardio timing may play a role. To achieve the optimum benefits of cardio for weight loss it’s probably a good idea that you perform your cardio workouts first thing in the morning before you eat your first meal. Early morning cardio exercise on an empty stomach has two primary advantages over doing it later in the day.
When you first wake up early in the morning your levels of muscle and liver glycogen (stored sugar) are very low. Let’s say you had supper at 6 and breakfast at 7 a.m., that's 13 hours without any food. During this 13-hour “fast”, your stored glycogen levels slowly drop since they are providing glucose for numerous bodily functions that go on even while you’re asleep. This means that when you wake up in the morning with low glycogen levels, the only thing left for the body to burn for a fuel source is stored fat. Now how much extra weight loss and fat burning will take place is not certain, but some research suggests that up to three times more fat is burned when cardio is done in a carbohydrate depleted environment.
You may ask how this works exactly? Well it's very straight forward. Carbohydrate is the body's primary energy source. Before fat or muscle tissue is used, the body prefers carbohydrate. When this primary fuel source is in short supply, it forces the body to switch to secondary sources such as fat. If you do cardio immediately after eating you'll still burn fat, but you'll burn much less of it because the body will be burning the carbohydrates first. So while not an absolute necessity, nevertheless cardio timing may play a small role in weight loss and fat burning.
