Results of several new studies have totally blown my mind. Apparently, exercising while your body is low on food may be a good way to trim excess fat. Usually, you are told to carbo load before a big race to fuel you muscles but scientists say if you don’t eat before you are forced to burn fat.
"When you exercise (after fasting), your adrenalin is high and your insulin is low," said Peter Hespel, a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Leuven in Belgium. "That ratio is favorable for your muscles to oxidize (break down) more fatty acids." Hespel said that people who exercise without having eaten burn more fat than they would if they had grabbed a bite beforehand. (AP)
In a 2008 study, Hespel and colleagues tested the effects on men who did endurance training without eating versus those who ate. In the athletes who hadn't eaten, the researchers found a spike in the amount of proteins needed to process fat, meaning their bodies had been primed through fasting to burn more fat.
The best time to do this is before breakfast, since eating carbohydrates interrupts the process of metabolizing fat for about six hours.
As usual there are two sides to every opinion…some experts say the fasting method will give you results faster and others say it won’t help people trying to lose weight because the fat mostly comes from the muscles.
Either way it’s probably not the best idea to be starving before a meal, so be careful. You don’t want to be the kid passed out on the treadmill.