Training before Breakfast

R8JimBob88

Evening all,

So I've recently got myself a turbo trainer and I'm doing x2 1hr workouts in the week before breakfast.

I know exercising before breakfast burns more fat, kick starts your metabolism for the day etc etc but my questions is....

If I followed my sessions with a high carb breakfast, would I still reap the benefits of exercising before eating? Would my body start burning the carbs immediately after eating them or would I continue to burn fat.

Please excuse my ignorance on this subject!

Thanks 8)

VTech

I didnt realise more fat is burnt in the morning, ive not really thought about it but im going to give it a try and see how it goes.

Garry H

VTech wrote:

I didnt realise more fat is burnt in the morning, ive not really thought about it but im going to give it a try and see how it goes.

I believe it's very debatable...

MarkAshton

Your body has a store of glycogen. Time of day as to when its full or not is irrelevant.

TakeTurns

Once you've eaten, you will start to burn the carbs which you take in through the food. Your fats are only used as back-up when your body has ran out of glycogen. That is the purpose behind riding on an empty stomach.

It's a good training method as it helps your body to become accustomed to using fat stores.

I'm already lean so it's hard to loose weight. However, this does work well for me. Post ride I always have a 3 bananas blended with milk. From then on, I can usually wait it out till dinner with healthy snacks.

Froomes Edgar

MarkAshton wrote:

Your body has a store of glycogen. Time of day as to when its full or not is irrelevant.

Stop spoiling things with facts

danowat

TakeTurns wrote:

Your fats are only used as back-up when your body has ran out of glycogen. That is the purpose behind riding on an empty stomach.

Wrong.

Your body always burns a combination of fat and glycogen, it's just the percentages of each that change, fasted riding teaches the body to be more efficient at burning stored fat.

Herbsman

So many people, so little actual information...

Starving yourself is a great way of causing long term problems.

team47b

Your glucose levels are at their lowest for the day before breakfast, assuming your glucose is border line empty you would need to exercise for approximately 90 minutes to use up your entire glycogen store.

But the good news is that when you stop exercising your glycogen store (your liver and muscles) immediately suck up the carbs you eat for breakfast, meaning you will have less glucose in your system and produce less insulin which will mean less glucose is then stored as fat.

You have most glucose (un burnt fuel) in your system after dinner in the evening so maybe this is also a good time for turbo, before having breakfast cereals for supper

VTech

I never feel hungry in the morning although looking at me you would think I never miss a meal.
I tend to eat irregularly due to work which I know is bad and then snack as I realise im hungry right at the last minute and end up feeling starving.

napoleond

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23313101/

Wrath Rob

Thanks Nap, that's actually a pretty interesting paper, although based on a study size of 12 is pretty small to be basing serious results on

In summary, you use the same amount of calories whether you exercise before or after breakfast when measured over a 24 hour period. However, what does change is the % calories from fat or carbs. When your gut is empty (post absorptive state), you use more fat compared to when you have food in your gut (postprandial).

Herbsman: Who said anything about starving yourself?

TakeTurns

@ Danowatt

Thanks for clearing that up. Thought I'd made a mistake there.

Herbsman wrote:

So many people, so little actual information...

Starving yourself is a great way of causing long term problems.

Who mentioned starving themselves :?:

mamba80

How anyone can go on a bike ride of whatever length without some food and a coffee is beyond me - especially a turbo
Having tried this, i ended up eatin like a findus and feeling shitte until lunch.

jgsi

Like an idiot on a turbo, I am trying a daily HoP on 2 black espressos between 7 and 8am each day this week.
As you can see... this morning was not a full and wholesome HoP.

markos1963

mamba80 wrote:

How anyone can go on a bike ride of whatever length without some food and a coffee is beyond me - especially a turbo
Having tried this, i ended up eatin like a findus and feeling shitte until lunch.

I never have any problems riding fasted, I don't go for any longer than an hour though but this fits in with my commute.

stueys

JGSI wrote:

Like an idiot on a turbo, I am trying a daily HoP on 2 black espressos between 7 and 8am each day this week.
As you can see... this morning was not a full and wholesome HoP.

Is the hour of power your own creation on TR?

Lightning

JGSI wrote:

Like an idiot on a turbo, I am trying a daily HoP on 2 black espressos between 7 and 8am each day this week.
As you can see... this morning was not a full and wholesome HoP.

Have you calculated how many more calories you would have actually burned if you had eaten breakfast first and managed to finish it?

Velonutter

Dr Garry Palmer has been helping me re-adjust my riding, so I do 3 fat burning/enduro rides a week, 60-90 Mins Tuesday and Wednesday and a 90-180 min ride on a Saturday, the only thing I allow myself is a large black coffee beforehand.

I keep my heart beat firmly in Zone 2 and it is getting easier and easier to maintain, well the speed has increased now by a couple of mph within the same HR zone

jgsi

Stueys wrote:

JGSI wrote:

Like an idiot on a turbo, I am trying a daily HoP on 2 black espressos between 7 and 8am each day this week.
As you can see... this morning was not a full and wholesome HoP.

Is the hour of power your own creation on TR?

Yup... as you can see I don't make the 'hour' .. but doing up to a point where going on is pointless.. ie far too much in red zone.
Revolver on Sufferfest doesnt stay in the right zones for a HoP as per the 'book'

Wrath Rob

JGSI wrote:

Stueys wrote:

JGSI wrote:

Like an idiot on a turbo, I am trying a daily HoP on 2 black espressos between 7 and 8am each day this week.
As you can see... this morning was not a full and wholesome HoP.

Is the hour of power your own creation on TR?

Yup... as you can see I don't make the 'hour' .. but doing up to a point where going on is pointless.. ie far too much in red zone.
Revolver on Sufferfest doesnt stay in the right zones for a HoP as per the 'book'

Based on HR? Or power? If the former then that's probably an indication of another issue, e.g. temperature management in your turbo dungeon. If the latter, i.e. you're finding it too hard to maintain, then your FTP is probably not right and is probably too high. I doubt breakfast/no breakfast has anything to do with getting to the end or not.

Or you just need to obey Rule 5

jgsi

I do my own rules
Did better this morning by amount a minute...
Working out before breakkie at least has had one result... I was plateauing on 168 lbs for the last 10 days or so... after Sunday's horrendous reliability and 2 days worth of HoP and then some cheap spinning, weight was 164.7lbs this morning.
I now have to balance any potential loss of power against this low weight. I am in no danger of scaring off Gesink with his skinny 150lbs but don't want to go any lower.
FTP is about right btw.. probably a bit on the low side, but again not messing with it.

mattshrops

HoP on consecutive days is very tough and not finishing them is not an indication of ftp being wrong.
My own personal version on TR(based on the work of Bill Black) has a TSS of 123 so again consecutive days is not easy(not that i've tried that yet.-so many workouts -so little time{for recovery})

JGSI is going to be handing out some spankings come the new season i reckon.

jgsi

mattshrops wrote:

HoP on consecutive days is very tough and not finishing them is not an indication of ftp being wrong.
My own personal version on TR(based on the work of Bill Black) has a TSS of 123 so again consecutive days is not easy(not that i've tried that yet.-so many workouts -so little time{for recovery})

JGSI is going to be handing out some spankings come the new season i reckon.

I appreciate the confidence but I also appreciate the quality of the LVRC fields as well! hence the concerted effort to have some proper structure in my training.

SBezza

R8JimBob88 wrote:

Evening all,

So I've recently got myself a turbo trainer and I'm doing x2 1hr workouts in the week before breakfast.

I know exercising before breakfast burns more fat, kick starts your metabolism for the day etc etc but my questions is....

If I followed my sessions with a high carb breakfast, would I still reap the benefits of exercising before eating? Would my body start burning the carbs immediately after eating them or would I continue to burn fat.

Please excuse my ignorance on this subject!

Thanks 8)

Just eat your normal breakfast, there is absolutely no need for a high carb meal after 1 hour of exercise, even at FTP levels, you would replace the used glycogen (and as Danowat says the amount used is determined by intensity) during the day without any issues. As soon as you eat high GI carbs the fat burning will effectively switch off as you will get an blood glucose spike, and then an insulin response to either shunt the blood glucose into the muscles, or when they are full into the fat cells.

I regularly do Z3 sessions before breakfast, and just eat normally through the day, always have enough energy for a repeat session in the evening. The only downside to exercising at high intensities without food is that quality can be compromised if you are not careful.

mclarent

SBezza wrote:

Just eat your normal breakfast, there is absolutely no need for a high carb meal after 1 hour of exercise, even at FTP levels, you would replace the used glycogen (and as Danowat says the amount used is determined by intensity) during the day without any issues. As soon as you eat high GI carbs the fat burning will effectively switch off as you will get an blood glucose spike, and then an insulin response to either shunt the blood glucose into the muscles, or when they are full into the fat cells.

I regularly do Z3 sessions before breakfast, and just eat normally through the day, always have enough energy for a repeat session in the evening. The only downside to exercising at high intensities without food is that quality can be compromised if you are not careful.

I agree, the only exception being if you were, for example, doing 2 sessions a day, when a bit more thought would prob help. Also, protein.

SBezza

mclarent wrote:

SBezza wrote:

Just eat your normal breakfast, there is absolutely no need for a high carb meal after 1 hour of exercise, even at FTP levels, you would replace the used glycogen (and as Danowat says the amount used is determined by intensity) during the day without any issues. As soon as you eat high GI carbs the fat burning will effectively switch off as you will get an blood glucose spike, and then an insulin response to either shunt the blood glucose into the muscles, or when they are full into the fat cells.

I regularly do Z3 sessions before breakfast, and just eat normally through the day, always have enough energy for a repeat session in the evening. The only downside to exercising at high intensities without food is that quality can be compromised if you are not careful.

I agree, the only exception being if you were, for example, doing 2 sessions a day, when a bit more thought would prob help. Also, protein.

Very true, eating the required food to supplement the training should always be at the forefront of the thinking with regards to training, with regards to protein I would hope that people realise if training hard or lots they need a good source and lots of protein, as well as good quality carbs (not mass produced processed stuff), and fats

Herbsman

TakeTurns wrote:

Who mentioned starving themselves :?:

Ok, so I exaggerated - but surely that's no worse than spouting factually inaccurate boll*cks like this:

TakeTurns wrote:

Your fats are only used as back-up when your body has ran out of glycogen.

...time and time again.



If you train regularly, then doing so after you've not eaten anything for 6-10 hours (or however long you sleep) might not be the best idea if you don't keep the duration short and keep the intensity low. In which case, that's not exactly 'training', it's 'riding a bike gently for a short time'. Actual training, while restricting food intake, can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiency as well as calorie deficiency, which doesn't just lead to weight loss but can put a person at risk of suppressed immune system function, increased stress hormone production, hormone imbalances etc.

Training in a fasted state has been shown to increase fat metabolism and prevent blood glucose from dropping. However, if you then go and eat and drink carbohydrates before and during races then doesn't this negate any benefits you might have gained from fasted training?

bigdaveskinnytyre

I read a summary of a study recently (been trying to find a link but can't remember where I read it) that suggests that training fasted burns fat during the exercise but there is less post exercise fat burning than if you had eaten before the workout.

SBezza

Herbsman wrote:

TakeTurns wrote:

If you train regularly, then doing so after you've not eaten anything for 6-10 hours (or however long you sleep) might not be the best idea if you don't keep the duration short and keep the intensity low. In which case, that's not exactly 'training', it's 'riding a bike gently for a short time'. Actual training, while restricting food intake, can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiency as well as calorie deficiency, which doesn't just lead to weight loss but can put a person at risk of suppressed immune system function, increased stress hormone production, hormone imbalances etc.

Training in a fasted state has been shown to increase fat metabolism and prevent blood glucose from dropping. However, if you then go and eat and drink carbohydrates before and during races then doesn't this negate any benefits you might have gained from fasted training?

Well that is not true, and the diagram you posted is an overall subjective view, each persons fat/glycogen usage is entirely individual and totally trainable.

I do lots of fairly high intensity training fasted, there is no way I will be getting on the turbo at 5am and having a breakfast beforehand, and then trying to do a hardish session. It is enitely feasable to train fasted even at higher intensities and regularly without suffering huge glycogen depletion. It takes a little training to get the body used to it I will admit, but it is possible. You need to make sure you eat a nutrious diet for all times when you are not training and you shouldn't suffer any deficiencies at all. All hard training will depress the immune system, and increase hormone issues you can't get away from that, but it is a manageable problem with the correct diet and rest when not training.

With regards to racing, well this is at a higher intensity and for a longer duration than you would typically train, and hence getting carbs into you is important if you want to perform to your maximum ability. The ability to be able to burn fat at high intensities will aid you in less fatigue during these races so in the later stages you are hopefully in a better state than your other competitors. Remember you will not be able to consume anywhere near the calories you require during a race, so if you can be efficient at using a source you have plenty off, then you are sparing the little glycogen you have.

Herbsman

SBezza wrote:

Well that is not true, and the diagram you posted is an overall subjective view, each persons fat/glycogen usage is entirely individual and totally trainable.

Yes and each person's response to fasted training is entirely individual, which is why I said it 'might not be the best idea' as opposed to 'its a bad idea for everyone'. Unlike people who seem to be recommending it as a 'good method of training' without taking into account that some things work for some people but not for others.