Eat before cardio

[gbrice75]

I am in a bit of a different place than Base and Jimmy with regards to some of the statements above, but I don't want to hijack this thread and make it about calories in/calories out. I will keep it simple and say that depending on the intensity of your cardio, a meal prior isn't necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I prefer fasted cardio but I keep it moderate intensity/steady state. When I do fed state cardio, it always follows a workout. The true intention of the meal was to fuel my workout, and the fed state cardio is simply 'collateral damage', for lack of a better term. Note I DO up the intensity and/or mix in HIIT when doing fed state cardio.

Personally, I don't see a benefit to fueling a cardio session whose primary purpose is to burn bodyfat - regardless of intensity.

[baseline_9]

I am in a bit of a different place than Base and Jimmy with regards to some of the statements above, but I don't want to hijack this thread and make it about calories in/calories out. I will keep it simple and say that depending on the intensity of your cardio, a meal prior isn't necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I prefer fasted cardio but I keep it moderate intensity/steady state. When I do fed state cardio, it always follows a workout. The true intention of the meal was to fuel my workout, and the fed state cardio is simply 'collateral damage', for lack of a better term. Note I DO up the intensity and/or mix in HIIT when doing fed state cardio.

Personally, I don't see a benefit to fueling a cardio session whose primary purpose is to burn bodyfat - regardless of intensity.

How about to increase intensity and burn more calories?

[gbrice75]

How about to increase intensity and burn more calories?

It's pretty well accepted that low/moderate intensity cardio will burn more fat (i.e. the so-called 'fat burning zone'), but higher intensity cardio will burn more calories overall. So yes, at the end of the day (figuratively), you have used more energy... or burned more calories using high intensity methods. However, I am not interested in 'blindly' burning calories. I'm interested in losing bodyfat. I loosely equate it with people who post here every day saying they want to lose 'weight', and we correct them by letting them know they mean 'bodyfat', because we care about the composition of said 'weight'.

It's sort of the same reason I still believe meal timing plays a role. Maybe not for the 20% + bodyfat guy (ok, forget maybe - that's a definitely IMO), but for guys who are looking to take things to the next level, REALLY dial it in... I believe things like meal timing and selective cardio are still valid and have a place.

If you haven't noticed by now, i'm not an avid Alan Aragon follower lol!

[baseline_9]

It's pretty well accepted that low/moderate intensity cardio will burn more fat (i.e. the so-called 'fat burning zone'), but higher intensity cardio will burn more calories overall. So yes, at the end of the day (figuratively), you have used more energy... or burned more calories using high intensity methods. However, I am not interested in 'blindly' burning calories. I'm interested in losing bodyfat. I loosely equate it with people who post here every day saying they want to lose 'weight', and we correct them by letting them know they mean 'bodyfat', because we care about the composition of said 'weight'.

It's sort of the same reason I still believe meal timing plays a role. Maybe not for the 20% + bodyfat guy (ok, forget maybe - that's a definitely IMO), but for guys who are looking to take things to the next level, REALLY dial it in... I believe things like meal timing and selective cardio are still valid and have a place.

If you haven't noticed by now, i'm not an avid Alan Aragon follower lol!

I know exactly where your coming from and I'm well aware that you know exactly where I'm coming from and that our differences in opinions are just that, differences in opinions...

It's simply the case for me now that I can't come up with enough good reasons to agree with you on your opinion that 'fuel targeting' (body fat) is the way to go for fat loss..... I hope u like my new term there....

My point is that targeting fuel in general is the goal... Not targeting only some of the fuel.....


This is how I like to think of it....


Your body is a car.... You have two fuel tanks.... One operates at high speed (glycogen) and is the main fuel tank and one operates at low speed (stored body fat) and is a reserve tank linked upto the main tank...

When you drive fast you use a lot of fuel.... When you drive slow you use a little fuel....

If you drive fast and use the whole tank of fuel (which can be achieved quicker than if you drove slowly), the car then has to be able to get the fuel from the other tank into the now empty tank....

If you were to drive slowly and not burn as much fuel then the tank would not be as depleted and overall you have not burnt as much fuel

[baseline_9]

My explanation is terrible, I know....