“Fasted” cardio doesn’t require some kind of extreme starvation protocol. It just means doing cardio when you haven’t eaten recently. The most common way to do fasted cardio is to work out first thing in the morning, before breakfast, since you’ve been fasting all night. (The word “breakfast” even comes from the fact that the first thing you eat is breaking your fast.)
Does fasted cardio help you burn fat?
In a limited, technical sense: maybe. In a real-world, big-picture sense: no.
In other words, there is a difference between burning fat and losing fat. We burn fat and replace it continuously throughout the day; burning fat doesn’t mean losing fat. We only lose fat when we don’t eat enough to replace all the fat that we burned.
Scientists have tested the possibility that fasted cardio might lead to fat burning, which in turn might lead to fat loss. Unfortunately, the results are pretty clear that fasted cardio does not seem to help people lose weight.
The results? Both groups lost the same amount of weight. Fasted cardio provided no additional benefit.
The downsides of fasted cardio
The biggest downside of fasted cardio is that you'll almost always perform better during a workout when you’re fed. You'll be able to push harder, work longer, and feel less tired doing it. If you find exercise to be exhausting, a pre-workout meal, snack, or even a sports drink may change that.
Longer sessions will especially benefit from eating beforehand. It's well-known among endurance athletes that marathons, all-day bike rides, and lengthy hikes benefit from a hefty supply of calories, mainly in the form of carbs. If you’re exercising for more than an hour at a time (some say more than 90 minutes) you should not only eat beforehand, but also bring fuel with you to eat on the go.
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Even though I sing constantly the praises of pre-workout carbs, I do a lot of fasted cardio myself. I don’t do it for fat burning benefits; I do it because I jog in the morning and I don’t want to bother finding the time to eat beforehand.
You have a sensitive stomach, and might get nauseous if you eat right before you run.
You have a limited calorie budget for the day, and want to save your carbs for later (before an evening weightlifting workout, perhaps).
In these cases, I would only skip the pre-workout meal if your cardio session will be a relatively short or easy one. Long sessions still require fueling. If stomach discomfort is the issue, consider eating a meal a few hours beforehand—or even have a filling dinner or midnight snack before a long or hard morning run. It’s also worth figuring out whether there might be small snacks, like a banana or a swig of sports drink, that can give you some fuel before your run without triggering your stomach issues.
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