|
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.
|
