Ever heard of empty stomach cardio training? Bet you have.  Empty stomach cardio training has long been touted to be one of the best ways to burn body fat and people everywhere are turning to it to increase their rate of progress.

But, does empty stomach cardio really bring you closer to success? Let’s just say that I have tried both at one point in time in the past and I can honestly give you personal feedback as well as research based information on both of them.

Let’s look at some of the key points to know about this variation of workout session.

What Is Cardio

Cardio training is virtually any type of training that is going to get your heart rate up and keep it there for an extended period of time.  This type of exercise is going to boost your heart health, burn off calories, increase circulation in the body, and can help assist with the fat loss process overall.

Cardio comes in many variations from walking to running to cycling to swimming – the types of cardio are really endless for fat loss purposes.

The Empty Stomach Cardio Concept

So what this concept entails is doing cardio before you’ve eaten any food. The theory behind it is that by doing cardio before eating, you can tap into body fat levels faster, thus seeing quicker results.

You’ll do your empty stomach cardio, burn fat maximally the entire way through, and then go back and eat your breakfast meal.

Does This Help You Lose Fat?

But does this really work? That’s the question that needs answering.  Empty stomach cardio training can be helpful in some situations if you’re aiming to lose stubborn body fat.  This body fat is harder to mobilize off the body and in those cases, you need to be taking things up a notch to get it released and burnt off.

Empty stomach cardio can help.

But the biggest concern of this method is the high probability of losing lean muscle tissue.

Just as the body taps into fat stores easily during this time, its also easier for it to break down muscle tissue to obtain free flowing amino acids for energy.

This is a huge problem because the last thing we want is to lose lean muscle tissue.

Another issue is its effectiveness because for most people, doing cardio first thing in the morning when they haven’t eaten will mean that they aren’t putting in as much effort simply because their blood glucose levels are lower.

So if you’re putting in less effort, this means you aren’t burning calories as quickly and aren’t going to have as high of a total calorie burn.

If you would have waited until later on in the day when you were properly fueled, you may have worked out at a higher intensity level, burned more calories, and improved your fitness more as well.

All in all, that would have been superior.

So the take home message here is that you really need to consider the pros and cons of this method before you think of implementing it.  In my personal opinion, the cons outweigh the pros since there are plenty of other ways you can burn fat without having to sacrifice muscle. So no fasted cardio for me please 🙂

So there you have the key points to consider with empty stomach cardio training. While it can help out with fat loss purposes, it comes with its set of drawbacks which can easily be overcome by following a holistic fat loss program.

When do you do your cardio?