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I've never had much of an appetite in the morning so my breakfast which is also my pre-workout meal has always just been a scoop of whey and a banana. I could never train on a completely empty stomach but apparently it helps with fat burning. Makes sense considering we all know cardio on an empty stomach is best.
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If you want to lose fat by doing more exercise, then exercise as much as possible on an empty stomach. In the short term doing this burns more fat than if you exercise while you've still got nutrients in the bloodstream, but in the long term the slimming effect is even stronger. By exercising before breakfast you probably train your fat tissues to break themselves down. British researchers at the University of Bath reached this conclusion in a small human study.
Study
The Brits got 10 healthy but heavy men to jog a moderate intensity for an hour in the mornings. The men ran at 60 percent of their VO2max.
On one occasion the men ran on an empty stomach [Fasted]; on the other occasion they ran two hours after having eaten a breakfast of about 650 kilocalories [Fed].
Results
When the men ran on an empty stomach they burned 20 g less carbohydrates and 7 g more fat than they did when they ran after breakfast.
That was not much of a surprise. More interesting was what happened to the men's fat tissue. Jogging activated all kinds of genes that stimulate fat burning, but this happened mainly after jogging in the fasted state.
Conclusion
"This study provides the first evidence that the feeding status alters the response of adipose tissue to acute exercise," the Brits concluded. "Several genes involved in lipid metabolism, insulin signaling and glucose transport were differentially expressed in adipose tissue when exercise was performed in a fed versus fasted state with either lower or opposing responses after feeding."
"Given the nature and direction of these differences, we propose that feeding is likely to blunt long-term adaptations induced within adipose tissue in response to regular exercise."
So if you exercise after a meal, your fat tissue is faced with "competing challenges", explained the research team leader Dylan Thompson of the University of Bath in a press release.
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If you want to lose fat by doing more exercise, then exercise as much as possible on an empty stomach. In the short term doing this burns more fat than if you exercise while you've still got nutrients in the bloodstream, but in the long term the slimming effect is even stronger. By exercising before breakfast you probably train your fat tissues to break themselves down. British researchers at the University of Bath reached this conclusion in a small human study.
Study
The Brits got 10 healthy but heavy men to jog a moderate intensity for an hour in the mornings. The men ran at 60 percent of their VO2max.
On one occasion the men ran on an empty stomach [Fasted]; on the other occasion they ran two hours after having eaten a breakfast of about 650 kilocalories [Fed].
Results
When the men ran on an empty stomach they burned 20 g less carbohydrates and 7 g more fat than they did when they ran after breakfast.
That was not much of a surprise. More interesting was what happened to the men's fat tissue. Jogging activated all kinds of genes that stimulate fat burning, but this happened mainly after jogging in the fasted state.
Conclusion
"This study provides the first evidence that the feeding status alters the response of adipose tissue to acute exercise," the Brits concluded. "Several genes involved in lipid metabolism, insulin signaling and glucose transport were differentially expressed in adipose tissue when exercise was performed in a fed versus fasted state with either lower or opposing responses after feeding."
"Given the nature and direction of these differences, we propose that feeding is likely to blunt long-term adaptations induced within adipose tissue in response to regular exercise."
So if you exercise after a meal, your fat tissue is faced with "competing challenges", explained the research team leader Dylan Thompson of the University of Bath in a press release.
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