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Cardio Timing: The Secret to Burning Fat Up 300% Faster
Author: Tom Ventuno
When is the best time of day to do your aerobic exercise? The
answer is any time! The most important thing is that you just do it. Continuous
cardiovascular exercise, such as walking, jogging, stairclimbing, or cycling,
sustained for at least 30 minutes, will burn body fat no matter when you do it.
However, if you want to get the maximum benefits possible from every minute you
invest in your workouts, then you should consider getting up early and doing
cardio before you eat your first meal - even if you're not a "morning person."
Early morning aerobic exercise on an empty stomach has three major advantages
over exercising later in the day:
Early in the morning before you eat, your levels of muscle and
liver glycogen (stored carbohydrate) are low. If you eat dinner at 7 p.m and
you eat breakfast at 7 a.m., that's 12 hours without food. During this 12-hour
overnight fast, your levels of glycogen slowly decline to provide glucose for
various bodily functions that go on even while you sleep. As a result, you wake
up in the morning with depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar - the optimum
environment for burning fat instead of carbohydrate. How much more fat you'll
burn is uncertain, but some studies have suggested that up to 300% more fat is
burned when cardio is done in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state.
So how exactly does this work? It's quite simple, really.
Carbohydrate (glycogen) is your body's primary and preferred energy source.
When your primary fuel source is in short supply, this forces your body to tap
into its secondary or reserve energy source; body fat. If you do cardio
immediately after eating a meal, you'll still burn fat, but you'll burn less of
it because you'll be burning off the carbohydrates you ate first. You always
burn a combination of fat and carbohydrate for fuel, but depending on when you
exercise, you can burn a greater proportion of fat relative to carbohydrate. If
doing cardio first thing in the morning is not an option for you, then the
second best time to do it would be immediately after weight training. Lifting
weights is anaerobic (carbohydrate-burning) by nature, and therefore depletes
muscle glycogen. That's why a post lifting cardio session has a similar effect
as morning cardio on an empty stomach.
The second benefit you'll get from early morning cardio sessions
is what I call the "afterburn" effect. When you do a cardio session in the
morning, you not only burn fat during the session, but you also continue
to burn fat at an accelerated rate after the workout. Why? Because an
intense session of cardiovascular exercise can keep your metabolism elevated
for hours after the session is over. If you do cardio at night, you will still
burn fat during the session, so you definitely benefit from it. However,
nighttime cardio fails to take advantage of the "afterburn" effect because your
metabolism drops like a ton of bricks as soon as you go to sleep. While you
sleep, your metabolic rate is slower than any other time of the day.
Burning more fat isn't the only reason you should do your cardio
early. The third benefit of morning workouts is the "rush" and feeling of
accomplishment that stays with you all day long after an invigorating workout.
Exercise can become a pleasant and enjoyable experience, but the more difficult
or challenging it is for you, the more important it is to get it out of the way
early. When you put off any task you consider unpleasant, it hangs over you all
day long, leaving you with a feeling of guilt, stress and incompleteness (not
to mention that you are more likely to "blow off" an evening workout if you are
tired from a long day at work or if your pals try to persuade you to join them
at the pub for happy hour.)
You might find it hard to wake up early in the morning and get
motivated to workout. But think back for a moment to a time in your life when
you tackled a difficult task and you finished it. Didn't you feel great
afterwards? Completing any task, especially a physically challenging one, gives
you a "buzz." When the task is exercise, the buzz is physiological and
psychological. Physiologically, exercise releases endorphins in your body.
Endorphins are opiate-like hormones hundreds of times more powerful than the
strongest morphine. Endorphins create a natural "high" that makes you feel
positively euphoric! Endorphins reduce stress, improve your mood, increase
circulation and relieve pain. The "high" is partly psychological too. Getting
up early and successfully achieving a small goal kick starts your day and gives
you feelings of completion, satisfaction and accomplishment. For the rest of
the day you feel happy and you feel less stress knowing that the most difficult
part of the day is behind you.
So, you say you're not a morning person? Take heart; neither am
I. I can sleep in like you wouldn't believe! But I get up anyway because I know
the effort is worth the results. When I have a bodybuilding goal that I am
clearly focused on, such as reaching 4% or 5% body fat for a competition, I'm
on my Stairmaster for 45 minutes every morning at the crack of dawn without
fail. Sure it's a challenge at first, but you know what? After a few short
weeks, It's no longer a chore and I'm "in the groove" - and you will be too.
Just try it. Make a commitment to yourself to do it for just 21 days. Once
those 21 days have gone by, you'll already be leaner and you'll be on your way
to making morning workouts a habit that's as natural as brushing your teeth or
taking a shower. Once you start getting used to feeling that buzz, you'll
become "positively addicted" to it. The more you do it, the more you'll want to
do it. Before you know it, early morning cardio will your new habit; you'll be
leaner, your metabolism will be faster and you'll feel fantastic all day long!
Don't even THINK about buying any supplements or going on a diet
until you read my revealing, no-holds barred fat loss report... Click here to
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