Do aerobic exercise on an empty stomach or after a meal?

There is no absolute advantage or disadvantage, it all depends on your physical condition, exercise goals and living habits. Don’t be tied to the “standard answers” ​​on the Internet.

In the past two years, I followed the trend of fasting aerobics. During the fat loss period, I didn’t wash my face every day when the alarm clock went off. I drank a glass of ice cream and went to the stairwell. I climbed the stairs for 40 minutes before going home to take a shower and eat. During that time, my body fat was really falling off quickly, and the waistcoat line on my waist was faintly visible in more than half a month. But I have also stepped into big holes. Once I got up late and wanted to climb an extra 20 minutes to make up for it. When I climbed to the 28th floor, my vision went dark. I squatted on the handrail for a long time before I recovered. In the end, I went downstairs and bought a hot bun at the convenience store and ate it. Now that I think about it, if I was caught by a neighbor, I would think that I stayed up late and worked overtime for nothing, and that I was really dead.

Why do so many people do fasted aerobics? There is indeed solid research support: after fasting for 8-12 hours, the body's glycogen reserves are less than 30%. At this time, when doing low-intensity aerobics, the proportion of fat energy supply can be 20%-30% higher than after a meal. For people who are in a hurry to clean up fat, the efficiency is indeed higher. But the prerequisites must be clear: you do not have hypoglycemia or underlying cardiovascular diseases. The intensity of exercise must be controlled at a level where you can speak normally but cannot sing coherently. The duration should not exceed 1 hour. Otherwise, you will lose muscle faster than fat. The muscles you have worked so hard to train will be burned away, and you will not have time to cry.

But the group of muscle friends around me who have been practicing for five or six years frown when they see fasted aerobics, saying that this is purely picking up sesame seeds and throwing away watermelons. They calculated: ordinary people can gain 2-3 kilograms of pure muscle after working hard for more than half a year, but they can lose more than 100 grams of muscle in one hour of fasted aerobics. What a loss. Therefore, they only do aerobics after strength training, or about 1.5 hours after eating a meal. At this time, glycogen is sufficient. Even if they do aerobics for 40 minutes, they don’t have to worry about muscle breakdown. Moreover, they are in better exercise condition and can handle higher intensity. The total consumption is higher than doing it on an empty stomach. The little girl who practiced together last week followed the trend and went to the battle ropes class on an empty stomach. After just 10 minutes of swinging, she turned pale and squatted on the ground. The instructor almost gave her a 120. Later, she ate half a banana and a small handful of nuts 20 minutes in advance before each class.

There is a lot of quarrel on the Internet now about this issue. To put it bluntly, it is a game between "fat energy supply ratio" and "total consumption". If you are in a hurry and want to remove more fat in a short period of time and your body can handle it, then fasting is no problem. ； If you don't care about that little time and want to preserve your muscles and have more stable exercise performance, it is more appropriate to do it after meals. There is absolutely no need to say which one is "politically correct", or even to call those who choose the other "fitness noobs".

If it really falls into the lives of ordinary people, how can it be so particular? Working nine to five, if you earn an extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning, how can you have time to wait an hour after eating before exercising? It’s totally fine to climb stairs on an empty stomach or ride a shared bicycle to work. If you only have time to exercise after get off work in the evening, you can't skip meals at noon just to "fast", right? Buying a sandwich on the way to get off work, taking the subway to the gym for exactly 40 minutes, then moving after a break, isn't it better than being hungry and feeling dizzy? And friends who have diabetes or stomach problems, don’t follow the fasting trend blindly. If there is a real problem, no one will take care of it for you.

I have been practicing for so many years, and I have seen people who did aerobic fasting for half a year and their body fat dropped from 25 to 18, and I also saw people who walked briskly after meals for three months and all their highs dropped. There are really no fixed rules. The purpose of fitness is to make yourself more comfortable. If you feel refreshed all day long after doing it on an empty stomach, then stick to it. ； If you feel nauseous and panicked after exercising on an empty stomach, and you don’t even have the energy to go to work, then why do you suffer from this? Oh, by the way, here’s a little reminder: no matter which one you choose, don’t jump up and down immediately after eating, otherwise gastroptosis and gas problems will come to your doorstep, which will be more of a loss than a gain.