‘fasted cardio burns more body fat’

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FITNESS MYTH:

If you want to lose body fat, you have probably heard that doing fasted cardio will help you achieve that goal quicker. Many people do aerobic training first thing in the morning before they eat breakfast, hoping to get faster fat loss results than if they had waited until they had eaten.

There is some solid rationale behind this. The idea is that as you’re training on an empty stomach, you are forcing your body to use its fat stores for fuel rather than readily available energy from whatever you’ve just eaten. As liver glycogen (stored carbohydrate) and insulin (a ‘storage’ hormone) are both lower first thing in the morning, it makes sense that your body will need alternative fuel sources to power you through your workout – and perhaps body fat will do the job.

Research has shown that when you exercise in the fasted state, rates of fatty acid oxidation are higher than if you exercise after eating.1In simplified terms, that means your body does indeed burn more fat for fuel, which sounds exciting.

However, it’s important to understand that your body using more fat for fuel is not necessarily indicative of your body burning more body fat. Think of your body like a fire: if you throw coal on a fire, you will burn coal for fuel, and if you throw wood on the fire, you will burn wood. In both cases, you haven’t changed the size of the fire necessarily; you have just changed its fuel source.

Energy equation

Your body can change its fuel source, but that doesn’t change how much body fat you store. For example, if you suddenly eat a lot more dietary fat, your body will start using this for fuel, but that doesn’t mean you are burning more actual body fat. If you want to change the size of a fire, you need to reduce the amount of energy yo

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