Cardio on empty stomach?

[deltreefitness]

While nothing is set in stone, most agree that the optimal thing to eat post-cardio (for low/moderate intensity cardio) is a meal consisting of either pure protein or protein + fat. High-intensity cardio, on the other hand, should be treated like a workout, so here you would have protein + carbs.

My bad, a typo. I meant to say carbs and protein. I always have oats and protein mix in the morning.

 

[Joe Stenson]

My bad, a typo. I meant to say carbs and protein. I always have oats and protein mix in the morning.

Even so, unless it's HIIT you're doing (which I doubt because most don't do that on an empty stomach in the morning) it's advised that you replace those carbs with fat...or leave out the second macronutrient altogether.

 

[TheAssholeFomerlyKnownAsDBBT]

Morning cardio is the best time for fat loss AND muscle loss. Being on gear helps a lot with the catabolism, but regardless it's still the worst time for cardio from a MUSCLE-SPARING standpoint. I personally still do it because the fat loss benefits of doing it in the morning are more important to me than the potential catabolism, but anyone telling you it's not bad for your muscles has their head in the sand.

Depends on your intensity and duration, and if you're taking anabolic steroids, and if you have some Branched Chains in you about 20min before you start. Then fat loss is a much higher source for fuel, and muscle catabolism is reduced.

Waiting an hour after cardio to eat is questionable with me, for a few personal reasons...this may only be true if your case if its the same as mine. Let's say you'd wake up at 7 am. If you're smart you were in the sack by 11 lights out the night before for a solid 8 hours of sleep AND just prior to that you'd downed some sort of whole food protein or ideally a sustained released protein shake. So when you wake up, you've gone w/out food for a little over 8 hours assuming you don't do crazy shit and wake up in the middle of the night. Get up, go to the gym usually takes 20 min. before I'm on the TMill. Do cardio for at least 30 min...go home yada yada--> boom... you haven't eaten in 9 hours and the clock is ticking..So to wait even longer FOR ME can be dangerous. Maybe its just my body type but I NEED FOOD NOW My .50

 

[Joe Stenson]

Depends on your intensity and duration, and if you're taking anabolic steroids, and if you have some Branched Chains in you about 20min before you start. Then fat loss is a much higher source for fuel, and muscle catabolism is reduced.

Oh there's plenty you can do to reduce catabolism, but it's still going to be the most catabolic time of day regardless.

Waiting an hour after cardio to eat is questionable with me, for a few personal reasons...this may only be true if your case if its the same as mine. Let's say you'd wake up at 7 am. If you're smart you were in the sack by 11 lights out the night before for a solid 8 hours of sleep AND just prior to that you'd downed some sort of whole food protein or ideally a sustained released protein shake. So when you wake up, you've gone w/out food for a little over 8 hours assuming you don't do crazy shit and wake up in the middle of the night. Get up, go to the gym usually takes 20 min. before I'm on the TMill. Do cardio for at least 30 min...go home yada yada--> boom... you haven't eaten in 9 hours and the clock is ticking..So to wait even longer FOR ME can be dangerous. Maybe its just my body type but I NEED FOOD NOW My .50

lol I agree with you, BUT that's the whole reason it's the most catabolic in the first place (because you haven't eaten for hours). So, TO ME, if you're already willing to do cardio at the time of day it's most catabolic that means you've decided that fat loss is your #1 priority. May as well wait that extra hour. That's my logic anyway. To each their own.

 

[Dial_tone]

I like morning cardio with either water or protein in water beforehand - no carbs or fats.