WHAT THE H#CK IS FASTING CARDIO?
THIS POST IS FOR GET FIT WITH BRITT MEMBERS ONLY - - ENJOY!! :)
Fasting Cardio is a FABULOUS way to burn excess stored fat calories! --YAY--
But there are TWO MAJOR problems...most people have NO idea what it is and/or they aren't doing it right! So here I am to save the day and TEACH you what Fasting Cardio is and how YOU can benefit from it!
Fasting Cardio is exactly that. Cardio while your body is in a fasting state (withheld food for a period of time - in this case overnight).
When our body is in a fasting state, our blood sugar is quite low (much lower than normal) because our body has used all of our blood sugar as energy during the fast. While we sleep, we are technically fasting - and withholding food from our bodies. Our blood sugar decreases as we sleep, meaning that we are waking up with lower blood sugar.
Now lets back up - - when we exercise, the first energy source that our body uses is our sugars/carbs. If we get into our 'Fat Burn Zone' (70-85% HRmax) we are then able to also burn calories of fat. However we burn WAY more calories of carbs right away before our body starts burning our fat calories. It takes 90 minutes....you heard me...90 minutes to get to the point where our body is burning MORE calories of fat than calories of sugars/carbs. Check out this graph below to see what this looks like:
SO...what we are doing with Fasting Cardio is basically cheating the system. We wake up where I have marked a STAR on this graph above. With that being said, if we perform cardio at that point...we have already burned off the initial carbs (while we sleep) and are able to get to those deep fat calories quicker! One BIG thing that we have to keep in mind... when we wake up with low blood sugar, our blood pressure/heart rate are very easily affected (can increase quickly). This means that we need to perform LOW INTENSITY Cardio to ensure that we do not go above our Fat Burn Zone (70-85% HRmax). If you were to go above this zone, you would end up burning muscle glycogen (muscle tissue) and that is not ideal!! You would most likely also feel very dizzy and not well. This would be a big sign that you were performing Fasting Cardio incorrectly! You may have experienced this unintentionally before by working out in the morning when you aren't used to it and went without breakfast.
IDEAL FASTING CARDIO SITUATION
- Eat a full day of nutritious foods
- Get a full night of sleep
- Wake up and drink a small amount of water
- Within 30 minutes of waking, go for a light walk, bike, or elliptical
- Perform Fasting Cardio for 20-35 minutes at a LOW INTENSITY
- Immediately post-exercise consume a high citrus fruit WHY?
- 30-60 minutes later consume a high protein meal
- Enjoy your day being a lean machine!
As always, remember that you should consult your doctor when implementing something new into your health routine, especially if you have any nutrition or heart condition that may be affected by a change.
Please let me know if you have any questions! I am always here to help!!
XO, Brittany
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