The TRUTH About Empty Stomach Cardio

I never weight train on an empty stomach but find I have excellent cardio workouts when performed this way. I don’t think there is any harm eating a small protein based meal prior to high intensity cardio, but I feel eating a meal with carbs prior to low/moderate intensity cardio to be a bit of a waste of time.

Sue

I always have oatmeal with yoghurt and blueberries about an hour and a half before my workout. It gives me extra stamina to be able to actually do the workout!!

Joel,

I tried empty stomach workouts once (I don’t do as much “cardio” as weight training). I would always feel nauseaus and didn’t get a very good workout. I seldom got through all of my sets before I had to stop so I didn’t throw up in a public gym.

Now I usually eat 1-1 1/2 hours before my workout and they are MUCH better. I finish all of my sets and feel great coming out. I’ve had to keep increasing my weights that sometimes it’s tough to remember what weight I’m on that week. I suppose there could be worse problems ;)

Great advice, though. My mom and sister do empty stomach stuff, and I’m trying to get them off the habit. I think this article would be a great place to start. Thanks for the great tips, as always!

~DK

Hi Joel,

I hear what you’re saying but I have always done empty stomach cardio, either metabolic resistance or HIIT. I’m up at 5.25 am to start my work out at 5.45am and the thought of getting up 30 minutes earlier and eating just does not do it for me! If you feel your energy levels are okay doing your cardio (because it’s what you’re used to), is it ok to continue with this pattern, or are you actually saying there is a physiological disadvantage to not eating other than lower energy levels?

Great post – it’s amazing just how many of my buddies workout on an empty stomach.

Thanks for the heads up!

I find that I feel better with my workouts when I have something to eat even just a protein bar or toast with jam if I’m not hungry in the morning. I also last through the whole session of the routine. I certainly believe that having something to eat before a cardio or resistance training is the way to go.

Hi Joel, I work out 3 mornings a week getting up at 4:20 and hitting gym by 4:50 (takes 10 min to drive there). I’ve found that if I try to eat anything I am really nauseous during my workout. The chocolate whey protein is a very yucky flavor to have around when you are working really hard. I don’t notice any performance hit, but again, I’ve never really eaten before i work out so who knows? I have to be back home by 6am to get my family’s day going. and the thought of gettign up even earlier to eat something doesn’t sound good either. thoughts?

PS – question – does the cheat day have to be sandwiched between two night’s sleep? or is it any 24 hour period and could be 6pm Friday to 6pm Saturday?? Thx!

Thank you for this article. I have done both and have been confused about what to eat before a workout. Lately, I have been eating a bowlful of berries & walnuts before a workout. Is this a sufficient before workout meal?

I totally agree wt u man. I’m gonna stop doing my cardio wt an empty stomach deffinetly

I am up at 0400 hrs in the morning I am unable to have breakfast this early. I hit the gym at 0500 hrs and train on an empty stomach. I do not feel week but tend to have enough energy to go through 1.30 to 2 hours of training. Is this going to effect me in the future. I do 1 hour cardio ( running 30 min and cross trainer (30min ) + 30 min to 1 hour weight training. I also need your recomendation for nutrition or suppliment I need. Take into account I had a triple by pass about 1 and a half year ago.

Hey Joel,
Interesting, the debate rages on! I’m wondering – if you get up early in the morning and don’t really have time to digest food for 30 minutes before starting, would it be acceptable (or even optimal) just to have 1/2 serve of Surge of similar prior to beginning?? (assuming of course, your stomach doesn’t mind training with that “empty” feeling which mine doesn’t).

Oh by the way I’m referring to a weights training session, not cardio. Thanks!

Ok. I guess what your saying makes sense. I’ll have my whey prior to my morning training both cardio and weights. Would bcaa’s do the trick as well? Lisa from Australia

on occasion i’ll get up early in the morning and drink a strong cup of coffe or black tea and then immediately drive to the gym 2 miles away and do cardio; sometimes continuous moderate and other times intense intervals. no weighlifting. i manage fine but i am very hungry after it , so i always bring a protein/carb shake with me and i consume it at the gym. i have read a lot of research over the years that says that fat loss is greater when cardio is done in the morning first thing with at least 200 mg. of caffeine. i don’t get it. are they lying? only once i saw a study that said the opposite. as a personal trainer i have been encouraging my clients to do so. now, i wonder if i’ve been wrong.

Thanks for your information on this. Your post is interesting as it goes against what I have been taught by my personal trainer. His gym professes that you should perform cardio (not weights) at least 2 hours after eating (not sooner) and you shouldn’t eat for at least an hour after a cardio workout (not weights). Co-incidentally, I have been working out for years in the early morning and then having breakfast about an hour after my workout, after my shower etc. and have not noticed any issues with lack of energy. So now I am confused!

I agree that eating – even a little something – in the morning is a more efficient way to work out. I have tried both ways and found I’m way more productive if I’ve had a bit to eat first.

I’ve always been one of those people who had a terrible time eating first thing in the morning. I’d rather have coffee… Now I have a few hard boiled eggs or a small bowl of raw oatmeal with milk with a wee bit of sugar or berries. Works great.

Here’s the situation, 2 months ago, I used to weigh 172 lbs, Been exercising and eating right.. 2 Months later, I did my weigh-in. It read 188 lbs.. I was shocked and sadden. I’ve been doing over 30,000 steps a day from power walking everyday outside, but I cannot seem to pass under 180 as of now. I’m trying to reach down to 150 lbs… Is there a way to break this plateau? Will muscle milk break the plateau? I may end up boosting my daily power walks to 75,000 steps a day, 6 days a week at seems.. Please respond, thanks.

Oh i totally agree that one has to eat before any kind of cardio… whether its morning or evening. I tend to work out in the evenings and i do need that burst of energy to have a really optimal work out… else its really useless spending the time at the gym cos you are not achieving anything.

Joel,
Thanks for the information. I ride my bike to work, and often do not eat at home before I leave. That would now explain why I am dying before I get to work on those days I don’t eat! I will now make sure to get up early enough to get at least a light meal in before I hit the road.

Thanks

Would be great if you could link to the available research – until then this post is as much a theory as empty-stomach-cardio is.

I was told that though you should not workout on an empty stomach, you should not work out right after eating either. Is this correct? And if it is, how long should you wait after eating a regular size meal? Because I work out at night. I don’t have time to work out in the mornings.

Hi Joel,

Thanks for the post. Actually, the one an only time i managed to have more of a six-pack, was when i did my cardio before breakfast, but i have to confess, it made me have a miserable start of the da every morning that i hit the gym. Now i gained some weight (hopefully muscle ) and try to get back to the abs -thing, but i don’t work out first thing in the morning, but seemingly keep on the same fat-percentage level…and leaves me a bit confused after reading your advice. (Either i do cardio after workout or extra on seperate days…
Peter from the Netherlands

I just started your program and am only on my second day! Obviously I can’t eat carbs this week so is it still ok when on a low carb week and what is the best thing I should eat! I do know if I have nothing my workout is rubbish! Any advice welcome!
Cheers Nicki

I’d like to see the studies, all the studies. Is it possible that whether one should eat or not depends on the type of cardio ones is doing? Anyways, when I exercise in the a.m., usually 5 to 5:30, I don’t eat first.

My sons will not run or work out when they have eaten because they don’t want to throw up. My son learned in training that if you ate before you worked out hard you would throw up your food. I try to have whey protein with some fruit but nothing really heavy. Usually if I am going to do cardio I can’t eat very much at all. But with resistant training it is easier for me to a little protein before and after a good work out.

When I played sport (Rugby with 45 min halves), I always felt that playing fasted felt a lot better…..until the second half :-(. So I did feel energy loss after a while and had to hydrate and carb up a bit at half time. But if I do ‘fasted’ morning cardio, it doesn’t last more than 15-20 min (HIIT or Tabatas) so I feel energetic and light and at the end when I am absolutely drained, I have a protein shake/meal and am rejuvenated. A lot of times, I also feel that when I do fasted cardio, I feel ‘hotter’ than usual throughout the day and especially hungry. But overall, I notice more a decrease in performance if I am dehydrated, than if I am hungry or that my stomach is empty. As far as lifting weights goes, If I eat, even a little before lifting weights, I have to wait at LEAST an hours or I’ll go to the gym feeling sluggish. In the past, I have tried MAKING myself get used to eating a half hour before a weight lifting session and found that I could only take protein shakes or risk feeling sick and slow. I also tried to drink a protein shake before morning cardio, and the sloshing in my stomach was too much to take. I believe that dehydration has a lot more to do with how performance is negatively affected by fasted morning cardio.

But if fasted morning cardio is worse, than why bother getting up early to do cardio (unless it only fits into your schedule that way)? If you wake up and eat/have a protein shake, it makes it almost like any other time of day (unless you’re arguing that eating after an 8 hour fast sleeping pre-workout as opposed to a 3-4 hour fast between meals is the defining factor). I think that now, after reading this article, I would be more apt to just do my cardio at the end of the day, if fasted morning cardio is not all that effective. That way, I don’t have to worry about the eating(weighing down of food in the belly)/sloshing problem (the slosh ofI a tasty protein shake while working out) because I will have already eaten, don’t have to wake up early, and I will have the same fat loss effects.

Am I understanding your contention? Are you still advocating morning cardo as the best for fat burning–just not fasted? Or are you more so pointing out that regardless of the time of day or length of a fast, that cardio is best done after having eaten for fat burning AND performance sake?

On a side not: I’m loving cheat your way thin–I’m starting week 3 and jeans are already a bit looser!!!!