Exercise before breakfast?

G'day Guys,

Here is a little article I just read that I thought many would find interesting.

Q: When is the best time of day for me to exercise for optimal calorie burn?

A: You may have heard that the best time of day to effectively burn fat is prior to your first meal. The rationale behind this is that while you sleep, your body?s resting metabolism is consuming your blood glucose and glycogen stores. With these energy sources depleted in the morning, it is believed that pre-meal cardiovascular exercise will break down and therefore, utilize a greater proportion of lipid (aka fat), for use as an energy source. Berman and Brooks (Journal of Applied Physiology, 1999) found that lipid utilization was greater in a post-fasting state for low and moderate exercise intensity; however, this was not the case for higher intensity.

Many experts do agree that while fat is more heavily utilized when exercising on an empty stomach, the body and will adjust its fuel source throughout the day to compensate. At this point most of the research available supports the idea that fat loss is more about balancing the 24-hour caloric ledger, than the time you choose to exercise. That being said, the types of calories you consume and the type of exercise you choose to expend those calories is an entirely different discussion. However, if your aim is for performance rather than fat loss, you would certainly not want to exercise post-fast.

While exercise first thing in the morning may not facilitate further fat loss, it might ensure that you get your daily exercise. For starters you will not miss the workout because something ?comes up? later, your metabolism will have more time to benefit from the 'excess post-exercise oxygen consumption' (EPOC) and most importantly, it will give you the lasting endorphin rush to kick start your day!

So for me the take away is exercising is better than not exercising but for performance you need to properly fuel your workout.

PEace
Peter