How long after fasted cardio to eat

When it comes to weight-loss programs, fasting is considered to be the most extreme. That being said, this method can result in muscle loss if it is not applied properly. Having applied this method myself, I can tell you that it produces real results and produces them quickly. Total weight is pounds if anyone is curious. It is important to realize that exercising on an empty stomach is not always the same thing as fasted cardio. Although you will most certainly be exercising on an empty stomach, there is more to the method than that.

To be more specific, there is a difference between simply being hungry and being in a truly fasted state. To understand this, it is first important to understand what happens in your body when you eat.

You know that food contains energy and nutrients, but you may not know how those nutrients are used. First, they are broken down by the stomach acid into their components. Once all the glucose and amino acids and such have been freed, the nutrients are absorbed by the blood, through the walls of the small intestine. Once in the blood, a special hormone known as insulin distributes the nutrients to the various cells in the body. The content and size of a meal will determine the amount of time that the insulin takes to do its job.

It also determines the period of time in which insulin production will be elevated. When you are in a fasted state, insulin levels are at their absolute lowest. It takes about three to four hours after eating before a human body reaches a fasted state. To reap the most benefits, the length of your intermittent fast should be between 16 to 18 hours.

For example, eat between the hours of a. Studies show that working out or eating too close to bedtime can interrupt levels of deep and REM sleep, so better save exercise for the following day. Studies show that even waiting two to three hours after a workout before eating promotes a rise in growth hormone, which helps make you a fat burner and replaces the used energy sugar. Adaptation to the stress created from a high-intensity workout is the reason a hormone shift occurs.

If your schedule only permits a lunchtime workout, you can exercise in your available time, and then benefit from the hormonal boost by refraining from eating until two to three hours after exercising. The hormonal benefits you get from exercising in a fasted state are related to the depleted muscle and liver glycogen stores that occur when you fast. Doing cardio while intermittent fasting is fine, but your performance will hinge on how fat-adapted your body is how good it is at burning fat for fuel, instead of glucose.

If you are doing cardio in a fasted state, avoid extending the fast post-workout, and opt to refuel after you finish. For instance, one small study found that when people ran on a treadmill in a fasted state , they burned 20 percent more fat compared to those who had eaten breakfast. When you don't have readily available energy from food, your body has to look elsewhere, explains Dr.

Read: Newbie exercisers shouldn't try it. That's because people who've been working out for a while tend to know their limits and be more in touch with their bodies, he explains. But the potential benefits of fasted cardio aren't limited to body composition changes. While running on empty may make you feel sluggish at first, over time, your body will adapt to be more efficient at burning fat for fuel. Conrad says this may be beneficial if you work out for longer than 30 minutes at a time, four or more times a week like endurance runners or triathlon-ers.

In fact, research published in the Journal of Applied Physiology comparing fasted individuals versus fed individuals over the course of six weeks found that, when training at the same intensity, those who consistently trained in a fasted state showed more improvement in their endurance exercise performance compared to those who noshed before training. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons people work out on an empty stomach is because skipping a pre-workout meal or snack means a few more precious zzz's.

The standard recommendation is to wait at least 30 minutes after eating to work out - and that's if you're only having a banana or slice of toast with nut butter and not, say, a three-egg omelet with bacon. Eating a larger breakfast before hitting the gym in the morning is a fairly obvious recipe for GI distress.

The easy fix: Waiting to eat until after your workout. Those benefits of fasted cardio might sound promising, but here's the thing: While your body may turn toward the fat stores in your adipose tissue for energy, it doesn't discriminate where it gets the energy from, says Dr.

That means that your body could break down your muscle tissue for fuel. Vavrek agrees, adding that instead of using fat from your adipose tissue, your body may use the protein that makes up your muscle tissue as fuel.

In fact, one study found that one hour of steady cardio in a fasted state resulted in twice the amount of protein breakdown in muscles , compared to non-fasted cardio. The researchers concluded that performing cardiovascular exercise while fasting might not be a good choice for people seeking to gain or maintain muscle mass.

In general, this would be at least three to four hours after a meal. In most research studies, fasted exercise is performed in the morning before the first meal of the day, and the participants have not eaten for eight to twelve hours.

You may also see the terms pre- and post-prandial in the research literature. Prandial refers to the consumption of food. So, if exercise is performed pre-prandial, it is performed before consumption of food, and if exercise is performed post-prandial, it is performed after consumption of food.

Other words you may encounter during research include fat lipolysis and fat oxidation. Fat lipolysis is the breakdown of fatty acids and glycerol stored inside fat cells called adipocytes. After lipolysis, the fatty acids and glycerol can leave the adipocyte, enter the bloodstream, and travel to tissues where they are used for fuel. Fat oxidation occurs when fatty acids are burned for energy inside of the mitochondria of a cell. In short, fat lipolysis is the breakdown and mobilization of fat, and fat oxidation is the burning of fat for fuel.

Some research suggests that fat lipolysis and oxidation increase when exercise is performed in a fasted state. Another important clarification to make relates to energy substrate ratios. Using MYZONE's fitness tracker app, you can monitor what zone you're in and judge how much you're burning during a workout. In the end, the overall number of calories we burn during our workout plays a bigger factor, and we are more likely to burn more calories during higher intensity workouts.

Further, we are more likely to continue to burn calories at a higher rate following a high-intensity workout than a low to moderate intensity workout, a concept called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption EPOC that we explained in a previous blog post.