The benefits of melting away fat with fasted cardio and how it can make or break you

Team Pro-Genetix
Jul 28, 2015
2 min read

Fasted cardio has long been used by many different people, weather it may be extreme athletes trying to get in shape, or maybe a body builder leaning out for a physic completion. Even more beneficial is to the greater majority of people who maybe just want to look in the mirror and be happy while they brush their teeth in the morning. Whatever it may be fasted cardio can definitely help you to attain your goals. So let’s talk about some of the main benefits.

Benefit # 1:

Morning cardio may have the greatest ability to increase burning free fatty acids as a fuel source. Most people make the mistake of arguing against fasted cardio since “you’re in a glycogen depleted state”. Not really. Unless you go to bed in such a depleted state you’re not going to wake up in one. Close to 100% of energy used during sleep comes from fatty acids.

So most bodybuilding literature talks about the ability to burn carbohydrates greater when you do fasted cardio... that simply isn’t true. Not since fat is our primary energy source when we’re sleeping we’ll likely have more free fatty acids floating around which makes them easier to be burned

Benefit # 2:

More glycogen is actually spared when fasted cardio is done because of the availability of free fatty acids.

Benefit # 3:

You may actually be able to eat more carbohydrates while dieting if you perform fasted cardio. Bodybuilders often talk about the advantages of the post contest rebound. They have dieted for X weeks so their insulin sensitivity is high and when they go back to consuming more calories post contest they end up growing pretty quickly. If we perform fasted cardio we’re already in a fasted state, agreed? Insulin sensitivity is high in a fasted muscle. We know that from all of the recent research done on fasting.

Morning cardio could potentially allow you to increase your ability to store carbohydrates in the muscle instead of body fat. If insulin sensitivity is high then the carbs are going to be pushed to refill muscle glycogen. Which means that a dieting individual can consume more carbs and someone looking to gain muscle can increase their ability to consume carbs without gaining body fat.

Fasted cardio can change your life and help transform you. We at Pro-Genetix highly recommend you give it a try and fit it into your daily schedule. You should do this first thing in the morning when you wake up before guzzling down your breakfast and head straight to the gym. Perform 30-60 minutes of cardio and then eat your breakfast.Say at the end of your workout you burned 400 hundred calories… that would be 400 hundred calories straight from the glutes, thighs, and calfs. Now get out there and put in some good work people!

Sources: Bodybuilding.com, jimmysmithtraining.com.