Have you ever considered incorporating fasted cardio into your daily training?

 
At Ollie Lawrence personal trainer, we ask all of our clients to consider doing fasting cardio. The science behind this set-up is that you’ll get up first thing in the morning and before downing your usual breakfast meal (full of protein hopefully) you’ll head straight for the gym and get in a good 30-60 minutes of cardio first.
 
The theory is when glycogen levels are low the body will be forced to rely upon its fat reserves to provide the energy to power cardiovascular activity. Furthermore, as soon as you have a meal containing carbohydrates in particular you are providing the body with a high energy source to fuel exercise activity meaning that there is less reliance on stored energy reserves such as body fat. In simple terms, during your workout you will burn more fat in a fasted state than you would when you’ve had your first meal of the day.

Benefits:

– Greater ability to target the stubborn fat stores in areas such as hips and thighs for women and abdominals and lower back for men.
– Feel good factor as morning cardio releases mood enhancing endorphins.
– May help regulate appetite for the rest of the day.
– Increases metabolic rate if intensity is high enough.
 
While you may burn off more fat doing fasted cardio, this doesn’t necessarily mean you will see a net fat loss over the course of the day. That comes down to what your nutritional  plan looks like. For example, say if you burnt off 500 calories during fasted cardio then ate an additional 500 calories throughout the day, guess what? You’re no further ahead… What you eat is still crucial to achieve your goals.
 
Incorporating fasted cardio into your workout plan which includes the building/maintaining of lean muscle mass should consider using BCAAs and Whey protein. This will help with preventing the loss of lean muscle.
 
For more information please call Ollie directly on 0161 399 00 77.