Get Your Morning Groove On

We’re talking exercise, people!

If you have weight loss as one of your overall health goals, whether it’s the last five pounds post-pregnancy, or you’re embarking on reaching a more long term goal of a large amount of weight to lose, the following tip may be of particular interest:

Exercising in the morning, before eating, can help boost your body’s ability to use fat as a substrate.    

I hate to say something as cliche as ‘you’ll be a better fat burner’ as it’s so over used, often inappropriately and so contrived, almost gimmicky, however, there is truth to the idea.

Simply put, a recent study  published by US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health showed ” fasted training is more potent than fed training to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during hyper-caloric fat-rich diet.”

That, along with the fact that you’re far more likely to stick to your exercise regime if you do it first thing, makes for a doubly-sound argument to get out and get moving!

Here’s the caveat- if you’ve never exercised in a fasted state before, it may be a good idea to test it out for the first few times in a controlled environment, such as the treadmill at the gym or on a neighborhood power walk with a friend.   Every so often, I’ll have a client report that they tried it and felt dizzy, faint or nauseated; if that’s the case, it may not be a good fit for you.  When I’m working one on one with a client, sure, I’ll give them a good push, but there’s a safe and not so safe limit beyond which to ‘push’.  Play it safe and perhaps test it again in the future…but in any case, get up and get out there!