When it comes to working out— and that too early in the morning, there is nothing more we’d like than to say ‘Not Today.’
We also hate getting up early to skip breakfast and pushing our muscles to an extreme level of discomfort. To awaken the potential of a ripped body, which is somehow hidden inside the lazy person who doesn’t want to throw away the duvets and go for a morning workout.
We get it; it’s hard. Not everyone has the stamina to throw away the duvets and get on their feet in the morning without even consuming a cup of coffee. It is especially challenging to do that after you have had a crazy night out, and all you want to do it get rid of that hangover, but a teeny tiny voice inside your body tells you to get out and get that body that you have always dreamed out.
Sometimes, it’s not about the body that you’d want to flaunt in summer. It’s also about keeping a healthy lifestyle and the thought of feeling good about making choices that benefit your body and help you become a more active person on the whole.
Before we explain to you the benefits of fasted cardio workout, let us tell you what Fasted Cardio Workout is.
What is Fasted Cardio Workout?
Fasted cardio workout is an exercise that is mainly performed early in the morning before breakfast or to put it in a simple way when our body is not busy digesting food. This means that you have to perform this exercise on an empty stomach to ensure that your body can focus not on the digestive part but more on cutting the carbs which are previously present in your body.
To put it delicately, Fasted Cardio Workout is simply an exercise that you perform when you don’t have any food in your body for about 4-6 hours.
When you get up early morning to work out, without consuming any food— your body is at its level best to ensure that your body has not moved or consumed anything that might hurt the overall phenomena of the fasted cardio workout.
Experts say that even though people prefer to do the cardio workout with intermittent fasting, it is not a recommended way to lose calories as you are forcing your body to feel a certain way and pushing it to its limits, which is not a healthy way to restrict calorie intake.
Instead, why not make the use of the time that you have unintentionally fasted and have thoroughly rested your body and then get up to perform a cardio workout. Not only would this save you time, but your body will be happier, and your day will go better.
But is fasted cardio workout a fad or does fasted cardio work?
Research in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism has actually proved that when you’re training at the same intensity, people who work out after fasting for 4-6 hours show more strength and endurance to physical pain and performance as compared to people who work out after consuming food, even if it is a small piece.
Everything works in balance. If you want to make the most out of your fasted cardio workout truly, you need to know your limits. If you push yourself over the limit, you might feel like your muscles are pulled, and you will feel sluggish.
But if you are able to grasp your way through the fasted cardio workouts, you’ll find that it is an incredibly easy way to make your sweat worth it.
While fasted cardio workouts are great at cutting down fat inside the body, you can’t perform high-intensity workouts with it since you require carbohydrates to perform something that requires a high staying power and doing the same thing on an empty stomach is like asking for nausea and weakness.
But if you are performing the fasted cardio workout for losing weight and building a pathway for strong muscle mass, fasted cardio workout will definitely work for you. The best part is that you can easily perform it at home and don’t need to hit the gym for getting a leaner body. You can check our posts on home gym ideas and home gym equipment.
The benefits of Fasted Cardio
Even though the benefits of fasted cardio are pretty clear to be a healthy body and burning more fat throughout the day, that’s not all. In fact, we have carefully curated a list of the benefits of a fasted cardio workout. Ready to get inspired?
When you’re on the treadmill at 7 am with an empty stomach, you’d look in the other room and might see your roommate dozing off in a sweet sleep. You probably would want to quit, but we advise that you don’t because you’re currently running fat faster than your roommate, and that’s a fact. Research proves that when you perform fasted cardio workout on an empty stomach, your body is able to cut down fat faster since it doesn’t have to fight through the digestion process, making it easier for your body to melt down the fat in your body and speeding up the process of a healthy body for you.
When you have had breakfast or lunch, your body is struggling to understand if it needs to digest the food or break out any additional carbs. As a result, what happens is that it breaks down the food that you have just consumed, leaving you hungry for more but with the same amount of carbs as before.
To put it in a simpler way: Your body gets confused as to why you’re eating and then digesting the food almost instantly. When you need energy, you don’t feel it. In fact, you feel tired and drained out of your energy.
Not only that, when you don’t have energy available from food that you have just consumed, your body needs somewhere else to look. As a result, it utilizes the energy, fats, and carbs which were previously saved in your body and uses it to get the energy that your body requires in order to get through that fasted cardio workout.
Another benefit of the fasted cardio workout is that your body is pushed to the maximum limit of exertion that it can endure, which tightens the muscles and utilizes all the energy that has been rotting away in your body as extra fat.
There is no doubt that you’ll feel the need to throw up or feel a painful reaction in various parts of your body— causing you to put a pause on the fasted cardio workout. But our advice would be not to stop as you’re just getting started. With more time, your body will be able to analyze the maximum limit that your muscles can be pushed through, and this will help you gain more stamina and better strength.
Should you try the Fasted Cardio Workouts?
Short answer: Why not?
The best way to start out fasted cardio workouts is by performing the training sessions at home, check our guide to a few fasted cardio workouts. When you’re in the process of trying out, don’t forget to put a water bottle and an energy alternative such as a fruit next to you.
