# breakfast for cardio



## megatron (Apr 21, 2004)

I was wondering... seeing as I will be doing some cardio each morning before work. Should I eat before the cardio or afterwards or both?

And also shoudl I eat something like banana before or something more like porridge. Thanks in advance guys.


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## Z3R0-CooL (Mar 9, 2004)

personally i would do cardio before breakfast.... and then eat something like porridge.

when blood glucose is low the body will be "forced to break adipose tissue,fatty acids for energy much faster instead of using carbs for energy...

low internsity cardio works best IMHO


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## DB (Oct 31, 2003)

mmm possibly some glutamine b4 to stop ur body being catabolic maybe a lil bit of whey?


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## Z3R0-CooL (Mar 9, 2004)

glutamine.. even though i dont think it works and according to studies it doesnt u can try.. along with BCAAs i guess but not whey..

u dont want ur body to burn what uve just eaten and u want all the blood to go to ur muscles not ur stomach.. just MHO


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## Conan (Aug 17, 2004)

id say do it on an empty stomach!

i would have a good sized glass of water to keep you hydrated for exercise and as you have not had any fluids through out the night.

i wouldnt eat before simply because it will make you ill if you are exercising straight after eating. maybe have something small if you can eat at about half an hour before exercise!

the most importat time to eat here is after your morning cardio! you need the right food here to recover from the exercise and then keep you going to your next meal.

i personally love my porridge in the morning as its full of slow releasing carbs so will keep you going and replenish your energy!


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Yes as Z3R0-CooL said, this is the best time to burn fat just after a resting fast.

Caffene supposedly works even better.

I have read that you can lose twice as much bodyfat doing cardio in the morning before eating.

With caffene, you can even lose more. I dont know the dose but I can find out. It would be in a pill form.

Caffene spares lean muscle mass and helps the body to slip into the fat burning phase earlier, just comming off of a resting fast (sleep).


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## Jimmy1 (Aug 14, 2003)

I used to think before food but now I like to have a SMALL whey and malto shake to stop me going lactate too quickly

this insures muscle isnt burned for energy


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## Z3R0-CooL (Mar 9, 2004)

200mg of caffeine is the standard dose..

i like a mix of 30mg ephedrine + 200 caffeine before cardio...


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## Z3R0-CooL (Mar 9, 2004)

Jimmy said:


> I used to think before food but now I like to have a SMALL whey and malto shake to stop me going lactate too quickly
> 
> this insures muscle isnt burned for energy


i read a few studies that suggest that increasing blood sugar before aerobic exercise almost eliminates the fat burning... cause the body will burn glycogen..

something like malto which is the highest GI carb would most definitely raise blood sugar levels.. whey promotes insulin response as well..

so it is MHO that empty stomach is best.... for reasons explained..


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

I have a case study using cyclist's and they were monitored using caffene on a resting fast.

Very productive for burning fat.

I will find it and paste it here.


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## Cookie (Sep 14, 2009)

I would drop the caffeine down to 100mg and add half an asprin with half a grapefruit.


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## Jimmy1 (Aug 14, 2003)

But we need to hold on to muscle guys

A cardio sesion will burn extra kcals guys but me must make sure we have a feed first


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## Cookie (Sep 14, 2009)

The one thing I would question about having a feed before a.m cardio is that it wouldnt have time to digest fully or doing cardio on top of food would/could be uncomfortable or even that the food source would have to be extremely fast acting to get into the system and be so small that it would easily be burn off.

The main reason we use caffeine(as far as I am aware)is that it helps the body burn fat rather than muscle tissue.

Plus you dont really need to 30-40 mins cardio first thing for it to be effective 5-10 mins of interval sprints will/would work far better,imo,so reducing the need for food before hand,and maybe also bypassing the need for stimulants so making it healthier for you.


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Dont make me find that article I was telling you about.

Cardio first thing in the morning no eating and caffene will burn more than twice the fat as eating.

Thats right it even will spare lean muscle mass (caffene) and promote fat for fuel.

Eating before wont give you the benefit of doing cardio after a resting fast (sleeping).

Im still looking for the article and winger has it.


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Article found:

Article by Bill Phillips, copy and paste but not in that order

Some people fear that if they do aerobics at all, they'll lose muscle mass. This is not the case. Recent studies [using a sophisticated procedure called "stable isotopes"] have revealed that, "Although aerobic exercise may stimulate muscle breakdown, this does not result in a significant depletion of muscle mass because muscle protein synthesis is stimulated in recovery." In this particular study, they experimented with aerobic exercise that was moderately intense [40% of VO2max, which corresponds to a heart rate of around 120 beats per minute].8 Also remember that one study with aerobic exercise during dieting indicated an increase in lean body mass. 38 And yet another recent trial showed that combining a low-calorie diet with the combination of resistance training and aerobic exercise was the most efficient method of burning bodyfat.24

In spite of this evidence, I don't recommend aerobic work the way many bodybuilders perform it, which is in what I call a "fed state" or after you've recently eaten. For example, I don't recommend doing aerobic exercise at 6:00 at night if you had a meal at 3:00, 4:00, or 5:00. It will take you 30 minutes just to burn the calories from one snack or small meal. My time is more valuable than this, and I suspect yours is as well.

Going back to the last question, I want to emphasize again that the best way to maximize the benefits of aerobic exercise is to do it in the morning, after an overnight fast--after not eating for at least ten hours. Some time ago, at our metabolic lab here in Sweden, we found that subjects burned around three times more fat in the morning [after an overnight fast] during aerobic exercise compared to afternoon exercise in a fed state. We presented this information at the 1996 FASEB conference.

Even more interesting was the finding that the proportion of protein being burned decreased rather than increased during early morning exercise. In other words, at a heart rate of about 120 beats per minute, you will not experience muscle catabolism, even though you are fasting. Actually, we discovered that over a 24-hour period, a positive nitrogen balance of around 5-9%, depending on protein intake, was measured with something called "leucine isotopes," which is one way we try to trace how much protein is being built up or broken down in your body in response to exercise.

Here's one more tip: drink a liter of water on an empty stomach in the morning, about five minutes before your cardio. This will make your blood "hypo-osmolaric" which helps push fluids into muscle, where they may act to prevent protein breakdown according to Häussinger's theory on cellular hydration, which states that, "Protein loss is triggered and maintained by reduced cell volume, secondary to loss of intracellular water."19

The bottom line is, the best way to maximize the results from aerobic exercise during a fat-loss cycle is to do it first thing in the morning. Even if your primary goal with using the Anabolic Burst Cycling System is to bulk up, you have got to keep your system "primed" with each cutting cycle, and part of that is doing aerobic exercise. Thus, even if you just want to get big and strong, do your cardio!


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## hackskii (Jul 27, 2003)

Another copy and paste: Bill Phillips

Caffene:

There is something you can do that helps; in fact, I've discovered something very powerful which helps you increase the amount of fat burned during aerobic exercise, as well as increasing the release of adrenaline, which helps psyche you up a bit--especially early in the morning! This stuff also helps prevent the exercise-induced decrease in intramuscular potassium, which also plays an important role in keeping water inside the cell. This compound even helps spare glycogen. When you are running out of glycogen, there is a signal to start the breakdown of muscle protein and convert it to glucose. This process is called "gluconeogenesis." Glycogen will also assist in keeping water inside the cell, which, as we've already discussed, is very important.

Fortunately, the compound I'm talking about is readily available, legal, affordable, and has no serious side effects. It's called caffeine. Yes, regular ole caffeine. Not only does it do all the stuff I already mentioned,2,10,13,23,30 studies show caffeine helps increase performance, too. For example, in one study caffeine users were able to bicycle for 96 minutes until exhaustion, instead of 75 with a placebo, and gluconeogenesis decreased by 55%.30 What this means is that the muscle was using just half as much glycogen when caffeine was present--intramuscular triglycerides were used; thus, less water left the cell. In another similar study, but with competitive cyclists, caffeine users exercised for 90 minutes until they gave up, compared to 75 minutes for non-caffeine users. And what is even more interesting is that the caffeine group burned 1.31 grams of fat per minute, compared with .75 in the placebo group.10 That's almost twice as much! Yet another study showed that exercising subjects who were using caffeine were able to work for 79 minutes versus 49 minutes [placebo group] until exhaustion.18 Caffeine also increases resting metabolic rate by up to 15%.1,3

All of these studies were using dosages producing urinary concentrations below the level accepted by the International Olympic Committee [12 mcg/ml].29

Now keep this in mind: the optimal effect from caffeine is when the glycogen deposits are low33--for example, after an overnight fast--and when the user is not tolerant or used to caffeine use.14 Thus, you should definitely cycle caffeine. Taking caffeine all the time not only lowers its effects but could also induce insulin resistance,26 which is something we must avoid.

I try to use caffeine only on the mornings I do aerobic exercise, which, during the dieting phase of my Anabolic Burst Cycling Program, is 3 or 4 mornings a week, for 30-45 minutes per session. I drink one liter of water five minutes prior to exercise. I also take in a couple hundred milligrams of caffeine as soon as I get up. Optimally, I like to take this caffeine at least 30-45 minutes before I start my cardio.

BP: What if someone eats lunch at noon and then does aerobic exercise at 6:00 p.m.? Is this enough of a fast to get the full benefits of aerobic exercise?

TA: I'm afraid this would not work out very well. You see, the "starvation time" must be longer than six hours before you encounter a significant increase in fat burning. The ideal time of fasting for optimal fat loss is around 10-12 hours, depending on the amount of glycogen you have stored at the onset of the fast.

It's also not a good idea to go six hours during the day without eating. As I described already, during the anabolic phase you will not get maximum results unless you eat often throughout the day. And during the dieting phase, fasting during the day will likely produce low energy levels, making it difficult to exercise at all.

It's a lot easier to fast during the nighttime--our bodies were obviously built for this. Some researchers now believe that one of the most important functions of this "hot" fat-burning hormone called "leptin" that you hear about in the news is that it inhibits hunger during the night hours.28 I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but it's actually pretty easy to go from 8:00 at night to 8:00 in the morning without eating. Think about why this is. There's got to be some type of physiological mechanism that makes this possible. Leptin could have something to do with this. Think about how difficult it would be to go from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night without eating--it would be literally painful.


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## winger (Jul 26, 2003)

Damn came to the table late.

I also got an article with Bill Phillips and Torbjorn Akerfeldt.

It is the abcde diet. Here is part of the cutting phase. Snipped for your reading pleasure.

Four days a week I'm going to try to do a minimum of 20 minutes (but hopefully as much as 30 or 40 minutes) of aerobic exercise, on an empty stomach in the morning, to accelerate fat loss. After I work out, I'll wait about an hour before I eat (my body will continue to burn fat for fuel at an accelerated rate after exercise). By then, I'll probably have to eat--I'll be starving.


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## megatron (Apr 21, 2004)

Thanks again for all of the responses to my question. Hackskii I think I will try training empty with caffine.

Also I had another question, in the articles posted the writer mentions sessions of 90 minutes. How long is the optimum time for a morning aerobic workout? Will going over a certian time kick in catabolisim?


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## Z3R0-CooL (Mar 9, 2004)

30-45 minutes of low intensity.. adjust to ur needs and metabolism..

start of with 30 minutes and increase over time cause the body can get used to cardio pretty damn fast and u wont be able to hit the desired heart rate easily... (60-70% MHR).. i read a study that showed that maximum fat burning is succeeded when HR is @ 63%....

if u are using AAS u can push it up to 60 minutes. if not stay up to 45 mins and dont do it everyday.. if u see that ur body is adjusting and desired HR is not easily reached.. skip for a few days and eat clean carbs...

not being able to reach the desired HR is a sign of slow metabolism... i know that for a fact from the past summer when i was cutting... my T3 was way below normal due to overdoing it with cardio and not eating enough carbs...


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## Lauren (Jan 20, 2005)

I am just about to start doing cardio first thing in the morning too and I am going to take 2 scoops of Glutamine, and also my multi-vitamin. Washed down with an ephadrine tablet. The head off to the gym for 45 mins cardio work. I really dont eating before cardio is good as it can make you feel real sick. Just stick to a cup of coffee and any supplements such as Glutamine pre cardio, you will feel much better. Then after have porridge and a protein shake (pure whey) or even a meal replacement shake to kick start your day!

Good luck.


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