Weight Loss
Exercise: The Secret to Burning Fat Up To 300% Faster
When is the best time of day
to do your weight loss exercise? The answer is any time! The
most important thing is that you just do it. Continuous cardiovascular
exercise, such as walking, jogging, stairclimbing, or cycling,
sustained for at least 30 minutes, will burn body fat no matter
when you do it. However, if you want to get the maximum benefits
possible from every minute of weight loss exercise, then you
should consider getting up early and doing cardio before you
eat your first meal - even if you're not a "morning person."
Early morning aerobic exercise on an empty stomach has three
major advantages over exercising later in the day:
Early in the morning before
you eat, your levels of muscle and liver glycogen (stored
carbohydrate) are low. If you eat dinner at 7 p.m and you
eat breakfast at 7 a.m., that's 12 hours without food. During
this 12-hour overnight fast, your levels of glycogen slowly
decline to provide glucose for various bodily functions that
go on even while you sleep. As a result, you wake up in the
morning with depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar - the
optimum environment for burning fat instead of carbohydrate.
How much more fat you'll burn is uncertain, but some studies
have suggested that up to 300% more fat is burned when cardio
is done in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state.
So how exactly does this work?
It's quite simple, really. Carbohydrate (glycogen) is your
body's primary and preferred energy source. When your primary
fuel source is in short supply, this forces your body to tap
into its secondary or reserve energy source; body fat. If
you do cardio immediately after eating a meal, you'll still
burn fat, but you'll burn less of it because you'll be burning
off the carbohydrates you ate first. You always burn a combination
of fat and carbohydrate for fuel, but depending on when you
exercise, you can burn a greater proportion of fat relative
to carbohydrate. If doing cardio first thing in the morning
is not an option for you, then the second best time to do
it would be immediately after weight training. Lifting weights
is anaerobic (carbohydrate-burning) by nature, and therefore
depletes muscle glycogen. That's why a post lifting cardio
session has a similar effect as morning cardio on an empty
stomach.
The second benefit you'll
get from early morning cardio sessions is what I call the
"afterburn" effect. When you do a cardio session
in the morning, you not only burn fat during the session,
but you also continue to burn fat at an accelerated rate after
the workout. Why? Because an intense session of cardiovascular
exercise can keep your metabolism elevated for hours after
the session is over. If you do cardio at night, you will still
burn fat during the session, so you definitely benefit from
it. However, nighttime cardio fails to take advantage of the
"afterburn" effect because your metabolism drops
like a ton of bricks as soon as you go to sleep. While you
sleep, your metabolic rate is slower than any other time of
the day.
Burning more fat isn't the
only reason you should do your weight loss exercise early.
The third benefit of morning workouts is the "rush"
and feeling of accomplishment that stays with you all day
long after an invigorating workout. Exercise can become a
pleasant and enjoyable experience, but the more difficult
or challenging it is for you, the more important it is to
get it out of the way early. When you put off any task you
consider unpleasant, it hangs over you all day long, leaving
you with a feeling of guilt, stress and incompleteness (not
to mention that you are more likely to "blow off"
an evening workout if you are tired from a long day at work
or if your pals try to persuade you to join them at the pub
for happy hour.)
You might find it hard to
wake up early in the morning and get motivated to workout.
But think back for a moment to a time in your life when you
tackled a difficult task and you finished it. Didn't you feel
great afterwards? Completing any task, especially a physically
challenging one, gives you a "buzz." When the task
is exercise, the buzz is physiological and psychological.
Physiologically, exercise releases endorphins in your body.
Endorphins are opiate-like hormones hundreds of times more
powerful than the strongest morphine. Endorphins create a
natural "high" that makes you feel positively euphoric!
Endorphins reduce stress, improve your mood, increase circulation
and relieve pain. The "high" is partly psychological
too. Getting up early and successfully achieving a small goal
kick starts your day and gives you feelings of completion,
satisfaction and accomplishment. For the rest of the day you
feel happy and you feel less stress knowing that the most
difficult part of the day is behind you.
So, you say you're not a morning
person? Take heart; neither am I. I can sleep in like you
wouldn't believe! But I get up anyway because I know the effort
is worth the results. When I have a bodybuilding goal that
I am clearly focused on, such as reaching 4% or 5% body fat
for a competition, I'm on my Stairmaster for 45 minutes every
morning at the crack of dawn without fail. Sure it's a challenge
at first, but you know what? After a few short weeks, It's
no longer a chore and I'm "in the groove" - and
you will be too. Just try it. Make a commitment to yourself
to do it for just 21 days. Once those 21 days have gone by,
you'll already be leaner and you'll be on your way to making
morning workouts a habit that's as natural as brushing your
teeth or taking a shower. Once you start getting used to feeling
that buzz, you'll become "positively addicted" to
it. The more you do it, the more you'll want to do it. Before
you know it, early morning cardio will your new habit; you'll
be leaner, your metabolism will be faster and you'll feel
fantastic all day long!
| Authors Details: Weight
Loss Exercise - Tom Venuto Web
Site |
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(Weight
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