Will Fasted Cardio Help You Lose Weight Quicker?

August 13, 2024 Dr Livingood

Is fasted cardio the key to helping you lose weight, or to helping you lose it much faster?

What Is Fasted Cardio?

Fasted cardio is cardio performed while you’re in a fasting state. I don’t do a ton of cardio myself, but this allows you to work out on an empty stomach so that your body’s not digesting food and is focused on burning fat

This could be done when you wake up in the morning after going 8-10 hours without eating.

If you’re doing intermittent fasting and don’t eat until lunch or dinnertime, you could work out in the afternoon.

If you’re a bodybuilder or trying to pack on muscle, this probably isn’t the best thing to do. But if you’re just trying to lose fat, this is going to optimize your results.

Your body is going to be very depleted of glucose, one of its main energy sources, so it will have to use a backup and start converting fat cells for fuel.

A review of 27 studies published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2016 concluded that exercise performed while in a fasting state induces higher fat oxidation than exercise performed while in a fed state..

That oxidation means your body is burning up fat that’s inside the system.

Not having the excess calories in your body from a recent meal forces your body to rely on stored fat and to tap into fat-burning mode faster.

First, you’ll burn up glycogen, which is the excess glucose stored inside of your liver.

Glycogen can lead to the fatty liver problems that a lot of people have because they never stop eating and don’t work out enough.

If you combine lower consumption with a workout, you’re going to burn up the fuel storage in your liver and then tap into stored fat, which is what a lot of us want.

I recommend getting cardio in first thing in the morning. I call this ‘eating the toad first,’ which means doing the thing you really don’t want to do early in the day.

This can allow you to burn up 20% more fat throughout your day, because you set the tone at the beginning by tapping into fat-burning mode.

If you don’t take in sugar for a little while after the workout and stay in that fasted state, you’ll burn up way more fat.

Is Fasted Cardio A Good Idea?

Fasted cardio is a great idea. It has tons of benefits that will help you, especially if you have GI distress.

Plus, some people do a lot better performance-wise when they’re lighter and don’t have food in their body.

It’s not for everybody, but it’s definitely something I’ve been incorporating.

If you can’t handle large meals or you want to try fasted cardio, try skipping some meals and going to the gym to crank up fat-burning mode.

If you want to know what you can drink while fasting so you’re not completely cutting out both eating and drinking, you can check out my video that covers it here.

If you need a clean protein source to put in during your fast, you can check it out here.