Fitness myth: 'Fasted cardio burns more body fat'

If you want to lose body fat, you have probably heard that doing fasted cardio will help you achieve that goal quicker. Many people do aerobic training first thing in the morning before they eat breakfast, hoping to get faster fat loss results than if they had waited until they had eaten.

- By Ben Carpenter

There is some solid rationale behind this. The idea is that as you’re training on an empty stomach, you are forcing your body to use its fat stores for fuel rather than readily available energy from whatever you’ve just eaten. As liver glycogen (stored carbohydrate) and insulin (a ‘storage’ hormone) are both lower first thing in the morning, it makes sense that your body will need alternative fuel sources to power you through your workout – and perhaps body fat will do the job.

Research has shown that when you exercise in the fasted state, rates of fatty acid oxidation are higher than if you exercise after eating.1 In simplified terms, that means your body does indeed burn more fat for fuel, which sounds exciting.