Ending Fitness Myths: Fasted Workouts

You want to start working out, but are lost because everyone and their mama wants to tell you what you should do and how you should do it. You try and follow all the advice told to you and you become even more lost because they overcomplicated fitness and what you should do to reach your fitness goals. This post is the first of the "Ending Exercise Myths" series that I have started to help set the record straight and dial down the intensity due to the overwhelming amount of opinions thrown out there.

Today's topic (as you already know by reading the title) is about working out on an empty stomach. I didn't necessarily think this was a topic of concern until I had a few clients come to me on the first day of training and ask if they should be working out first thing in the morning to see results. In the fitness industry, there are a lot of fads and trends that go around just like any industry. (Do you remember the Bowflex home gym system every one of our parents wanted in the late 90's and early 2000's until a series of unfortunate events happened, tanking the company's popularity?) Yeah, ouch. So it seemed this sounded like the start of a new trend, until I did some research to back up my thoughts and decided to share with you!

Myth:

"You need to workout first thing in the morning if you want to see any results"

This is every night owl's worst nightmare and has become a very popular topic in the fitness world. First off all, whether you are at the very beginning of your fitness journey or a year in, it absolutely doesn't matter what time of day you workout. Whatever time you workout that will allow you to be the most consistent with your workouts will be the best time for you. Whether that is squeezing one in during your lunch break or getting one in after work, whatever works for you is what is best for you.

HOWEVER, if you want to know my preference, I personally prefer to workout first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I believe this because there was a study done on 28 healthy men around the age of 21. Half of the men were on a hefty diet of eating 30% more calories and 50% more fat than they had been eating prior and barley exercised. The other half started to workout everyday on that same diet. Half of those who worked out did so before breakfast and the other half did their same workout after the same breakfast. Long story short, after 6 weeks, those who didn't workout on that diet obviously gained weight. The group that did their workout after breakfast gained an average of 6 pounds. The group that did their workout before breakfast didn't gain any weight. The reason for this is by limiting carbohydrate availability during exercise due to exercising on an empty stomach, allows your body to adapt to using fat as its fuel for your workouts instead of carbs. Like I've said in a previous blog post, when you workout, the primary source of energy your body uses for fuel is carbs. After your carb stores have run out, the next source of energy your body uses for fuel is your fat stores. Normally, it is hard to get to these stores. However, by performing your workout on an empty stomach with little carb stores to pull from, makes it just a little bit easier for your body to get to these stores.

Now, this doesn't mean that you NEED to workout on a fasted stomach. Like I've said before, whatever time of day that allows you to be consistent with your workouts, is the absolute best time for you. Even if you workout in the evening or on your lunch break and you are following a proper workout and diet plan, you will see results. However, if you are prepping for a fitness competition or show, or you just have a shorter timeline to lose weight, then fasted workouts and a proper diet

are your friend. With that being said, for the general population or us regular folks, time of day really doesn't matter.

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Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002457/