Cardio

[oaktownboy]

Hey guys. I just wanted to know when everyone does their cardio. I've tried it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, but a lot of times i don't have enough energy so i do it later on in the day. peace-
TRAIN HARD

 

[Jodi]

Right after your workout or in the morning on an empty stomach is the best if your trying to cut.

 

[DaDaMan1010]

I ge up arond 10 eat a big breakfast and do a full body workout and then go running/ walking for about 1 hr. I'm just a beginner so dont listen too close butif anyone wants ot give tips on how to cut quick please post!!!

 

[spire]

Originally posted by DaDaMan1010
I ge up arond 10 eat a big breakfast and do a full body workout and then go running/ walking for about 1 hr. I'm just a beginner so dont listen too close butif anyone wants ot give tips on how to cut quick please post!!!

You should not run after working legs.



I have heard that doing cardio on an empty stomac to reduce fat is actually a fallacy because the body even when you feel hungry has enough glycogen stored inside the muscles to work for 90 minutes.

 

[OceanDude]

Originally posted by spire
I have heard that doing cardio on an empty stomac to reduce fat is actually a fallacy because the body even when you feel hungry has enough glycogen stored inside the muscles to work for 90 minutes.

Spire, I have been extremely suspicious of this myself for a long time and suspect it???s even more reserve capacity than that. I have found some literature that suggests that the average man has over 2,500 (K) calories of glycogen stores in his body but it does not reference any published medical papers. If accurate this is a super lot of energy to fuel a workout ??? even after coming off a sleep fast state. This has been bugging me for a long time so I might do some online research to confirm the numbers. But, for the moment, assume that during the day a man eats his 6x meals or whatever, and does not perform a rigorous workout right before bed and glycogen levels are close to maximum. If this is true, then during sleep the body should theoretically burn some percentage of fat (since in a state of sleep it???s very low level metabolic activity not requiring a fast energy source) and perhaps some percentage of glycogen to fuel the conversion processes and breathing/brain autonomous functions. I just simply do not know what the true ratios are here; ugh more research. Heck, if I designed the body that???s the way I would make it ??? use the biggest source of low-grade slow access fuel that I could tap into during the periods of time when activity was at a snail???s pace and preserve the premium and fairly limited glycogen fuel (e.g. 396,000 Kcals of fat fuel in a 200 lb man at 10% bf verses 2,500 Kcals of glycogen). If nature did not make us this way then we have a huge evolutionary screw-up from a bio-systems point of view in my humble opinion. After all we need that short term energy source to go chase down new food sources (such as a fast deer etc.) and pick fruit in the morning when we wake up. Getting suspicious that maybe the Creator wanted us to use our brains and make us pick the fruit the prior day though so we could rest in on the 7th and talk to him and leave the animals alone though .

However, I am still doing my workouts on an empty stomach since I also suspect that if I can keep glycogen levels below 100% before eating then the body is less inclined to convert minor excess caloric intake on my first few meals into body fat (by excess I mean limited by the amount of sugar the liver can convert at one time without invoking a fat storage process ??? which I suspect is on the order of 500 cals per hour ??? more research???). I know that fat burn mode immediately stops when insulin raises above certain ???switching??? thresholds too ??? so I try very hard to keep that in check with a combination of slower burn low to moderate GI carbs (complex carbs) and no more than about 500 cals of food intake at any one time. In this sense I am using this fasting/morning workout discipline as more of a ???safety valve??? to prevent the switchover to fat storage mode than I am a mechanism that I am confident will burn fat directly. It seems to work for me and if I am correct about the body wanting to use the slow and abundant fuel during sleep there should be one hell of a lot of lipids floating around in the morning that I would rather burn at the gym than put back into fat when the insulin swings up during breakfast.

This is all extremely interesting stuff that I am going to get around to researching further some time. The one thing that is really driving me nuts (engineer here ??? we like to analyze any kind of system) is why we did not evolve in a way that permits us to metabolize fat directly into glycogen to keep glycogen levels ???topped off??? rather than convert it to those silly slow burn and inefficient lipids. All I can come up with is that it???s got to have something to do with hormonal signaling to the brain to make us hungry enough to get off our butts walk to the closest apple tree (post Garden of Eden event of course) and go pick some fruit. That and perhaps the body can rapidly pull those lipids directly back into fat storage as soon as we do eat for longer term survival for those particularily nasty times when the barbarian next door rapes our fig trees .

 

[Arnold]

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19015