How Fasting Forces Your Body to Shed Excess Fat, and Combats Insulin Resistance One of the explanations for how exercising on an empty stomach can prevent weight gain and insulin resistance despite overindulgence is that your bodys fat burning processes are controlled by your sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and your SNS is activated by exercise and lack of food. The combination of fasting and exercising maximizes the impact of cellular factors and catalysts (cyclic AMP and AMP Kinases), which force the breakdown of fat and glycogen for energy. This is why training on an empty stomach will effectively force your body to burn fat. Its also important to realize that eating a full meal, particularly carbohydrates, will inhibit your sympathetic nervous system and reduce the fat burning effect of your exercise. Instead, eating lots of carbs activates your parasympathetic nervous system, (which promotes energy storage—the complete opposite of what youre aiming for. This can explain why those who exercised vigorously but ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast first still ended up gaining weight, albeit not as much as those who did not exercise at all. More important, however, is the impact fasting exercise can have on your insulin regulation. The researchers concluded that those who fasted before exercise had increased levels of a certain muscle protein that plays a pivotal role in insulin sensitivity. As Ive explained in numerous articles, insulin resistance is the root cause of most chronic disease, making maintaining proper insulin regulation a primary factor of good health. In a nutshell, you do that by: Exercising regularly Avoiding sugar/fructose, and grains (including organic whole grains as they too will quickly convert to sugar in your body and lead to insulin resistance) Based on the impressive results from the study above, you may also want to consider exercising prior to having your breakfast to optimize the beneficial impact of your exercise on your insulin regulation. Other Pros and Cons of Exercising on an Empty Stomach Keep in mind that the majority of the fuel used during most exercise is not actually coming from the food you have just eaten. If youre working out at a moderate to high intensity youre using glycogen and fat that is stored in your muscles, liver, and fat cells. Typically, your body has enough of that stored fuel to last for one to two hours of intense work, or three to four hours at moderate intensity. Therefore, if you are consuming a high quality diet, eating every three to four hours, your body may not need anything to eat before you begin your workout. Still, some people do have a hard time exercising without eating something first. Typically these people are more sensitive to changes in their blood sugar levels, which can decline during the first 15-25 minutes of their workout. It is this decline in blood sugar that causes dizziness, faintness, nausea or lightheadedness. This is especially true if you exercise first thing in the morning. Additionally, exercising on an empty stomach may not appeal to athletes as it will typically reduce overall performance. Professional athletes may also not be as concerned with fat loss. I believe the best approach is to use some common sense and listen to your body. A number of individual factors can play a role, such as your age, when you last ate, whether or not youre pregnant, taking medications, your medical history, level of fitness, and the type of workout you engage in. For example, if you feel weak or nauseous while exercising on an empty stomach, you may want to at least eat a small meal before exercising. Fortunately, theres a near perfect breakfast food that may offer the best of both worlds.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 02:02:34 +0000