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The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

well.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#71

Post by matwood »

jules wrote: post #58
danielh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people can eat something immediately after exercising, some can't. When I run in the morning I usually rest for a few minutes to cool down, take a shower and then have breakfast. But you can eat immediately after you finished exercising if you feel like it.

If the theory is right it's better to wait longer, as it takes time for your body to re-stock the glycogen reserves. So you are still burning fat after you finished exercising.

What you're getting into now is EPOC and used to be thought to be caused by HIIT. Basically, doing short bouts of high intensity exercise you could drain your glycogen reserves and raise your base metabolism (and thus calorie burning) over the course of 12-24 hours. This theory has been mostly debunked.

Also, keep in mind that while depleting your glycogen stores may help your body focus on using fat instead of other sources of energy during exercise, it doesn't change the fact that the only way to lose weight is to eat less than you use. Too many people look at these studies (GI, insulin response, and HFCS immediately come to mind) as silver bullets. The only real silver bullet is eat less than you use. There was an article not long ago about a guy who only ate twinkies and lost weight by counting calories.

Physically, losing weight is pretty basic stuff, but it's so hard to do because it requires a tough combination of mental and emotional skills and often requires people to change their deep seated (often decades long) relationship with food.

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#73

Post by krschultz »

sliverstorm wrote: post #6
robchez wrote: post #2

This is hardly amazing to anyone who fasts regularly. I saw increases in all my major lifts when I train fasted and eat plenty of good fat (60% of total kcal). I would love to get a hold of the full study for a better look at it. Edit: Reading this article a bit closer, and taking to look at the study, it is clear that the author has some serious bias against the idea that a high-fat diet with fasted training will be…

'fast' is a terrible word, IMHO. Denying yourself food for a handful of hours is not the same as denying yourself food for several days, and yet both are considered fasting. How long were the fasts you took? I am curious because my lifts suffer when I have not eaten breakfast, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the exhausted feeling in my muscles, which I attribute to the lack of food.

I'm friends with several people who fast for religious reasons. For them that means not eating during the day time, it does not mean starving for days.

That is one definition of fasting, I guess a lot of people are only exposed to the story of Jesus "fasting" for 40 days where he ate nothing at all (if I remember the story right, if I have that wrong please correct me, I don't know the Bible all that well).

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#74

Post by oostevo »

awi wrote: post #65
thesz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own reason is that training for strength stimulates your body to produce testosterone, which stimulate logical thinking, among other things. Low level of testosterone found to be one of reasons of men's depression.

I'm pretty sure aerobic exercise is better for the brain than strength training. Aerobic exercise increases oxygen flow to the brain and it directly improves creation and survival of neurons. Effectively it acts as a drug for your brain. It has the additional benefit that it alters your mood, aerobic exercise makes you happy :) Strength training may boost testosterone, but the effects of aerobic exercise is well esta…

I'm really struggling to think of a strength training scenario where your heart rate wouldn't be elevated (thus increasing blood flow). Consider a max. back squat, where all your muscles are contracting to the maximum degree that they can for several seconds. I'd say that'll make your heart pump.

(Thanks for the citations. That's awesome, and I wish more people would do it.)

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#75

Post by eru »

hackermom wrote: post #69
eru wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the human body is primarily a FAT-BURNING MACHINE. How would our metabolism have to be different for you to come to a different conclusion? (I just want to know, how strong your statement is.)

Lipolysis is the inherit, main metabolical function of our liver and muscle cells. We cannot make use of monosaccharids without "switching" our cells into another mode. This is done by the pancreas secreting a hormone, insulin, into our blood stream; the hormone signals to our cells to stop burning fat and just store it instead, in order to focus on processing the sugar in the blood to prevent a sugar coma. Sugar is…

Thanks!

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#76

Post by awolf »

zoomzoom wrote: post #67
sliverstorm wrote: post #4

Come to think of it, this makes sense historically speaking. You can't eat it until you catch it.

I don't mean to offend, because I know that you mean well with this line of thinking. But it seems really silly to think that our cellular metabolism evolved in conjunction with the imagined hunting patterns of a proto-human. Cellular metabolism is a much older process. Also, the human body did not evolve to perform best when fasting. Certainly we have adrenaline for "kill" moments, but I would bet that eating before…

I really encourage you to do some research on evolutionary biology. Almost everything you said here is wrong.

It's only very recently in human history with the advent of agriculture that large amounts of grains and legumes becme available for human consumption. 99.5% of our human existence was spent as hunter-gatherers surviving on mostly meat.

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#77

Post by checker »

rkwz wrote: post #45
matwood wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only as long as you need to wait to feel comfortable eating. With weight training I usually drink a post workout shake high in carbs and protein then within the hour eat a well rounded meal.

>>Only as long as you need to wait to feel comfortable eating. Could you please elaborate a little bit? It sounds a little vague to me.

I think he's saying as soon as you can without feeling nauseous. I'm not sure if all people are like this, but if I eat within 30 minutes of a hard workout I have a rough time.

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#78

Post by zoomzoom »

awolf wrote: post #76
zoomzoom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to offend, because I know that you mean well with this line of thinking. But it seems really silly to think that our cellular metabolism evolved in conjunction with the imagined hunting patterns of a proto-human. Cellular metabolism is a much older process. Also, the human body did not evolve to perform best when fasting. Certainly we have adrenaline for "kill" moments, but I would bet that eating before…

I really encourage you to do some research on evolutionary biology. Almost everything you said here is wrong. It's only very recently in human history with the advent of agriculture that large amounts of grains and legumes becme available for human consumption. 99.5% of our human existence was spent as hunter-gatherers surviving on mostly meat.

hm, not sure what I said about eating meat vs grains.

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#79

Post by artmageddon »

chime wrote: post #20
dave1619 wrote: post #9

Wow, this is amazing. I'd love to try it out, but I'm not sure what I can do in the morning before breakfast. Maybe stationary bicycle. Anybody exercising before breakfast? What kind of exercise are you doing?

Get a good elliptical. It will work out your entire body (unlike stationary bikes) and not hurt in case you have knee problems (like treadmills). Put the elliptical in front of TV if you like and do 30-45mins every other day. I was 193lbs in August. I'm 174lbs now. Though I'd say I'm more of an exception because I gain/lose weight really fast. Nevertheless, I highly recommend a good elliptical - both my wife and I lo…

Each machine has its strengths and weaknesses. I find that stationary bikes tend to get really uncomfortable after awhile, too. My posture isn't the best and I feel like I suffer on a bike because of the hunching I feel like I have to do in order to grip the bars in front of me. It's also worth mentioning that a mediocre seat can definitely be painful after a period of time.

In the bike's defense: as a runner, spinning on the bike is an absolutely awesome to maintain cardio-fitness after a running injury.

Re: The Benefits of Exercising Before Breakfast

#80

Post by jules »

matwood wrote: post #71
jules wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the theory is right it's better to wait longer, as it takes time for your body to re-stock the glycogen reserves. So you are still burning fat after you finished exercising.

What you're getting into now is EPOC and used to be thought to be caused by HIIT. Basically, doing short bouts of high intensity exercise you could drain your glycogen reserves and raise your base metabolism (and thus calorie burning) over the course of 12-24 hours. This theory has been mostly debunked. Also, keep in mind that while depleting your glycogen stores may help your body focus on using fat instead of other…

I completely agree, I'm just saying that if the theory is correct, then this is probably a consequence. I can think of a reason why you'd lose weight by eating later: now your body burns your fat to replenish your glycogen levels, and later when you eat it stores the food in fat. This may well be less energy efficient than eating right after exercise and replenishing your glycogen levels with food.
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