Timing Your Cardio Workout For Maximum Fat Loss
By John Barban

There is a theory that you can time your cardio workouts to burn more fat. Typically the theory goes that if you do your cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach you will be burning more fat. The idea is that after a meal you will most likely be burning some of the sugars from that meal instead of stored fat. From a scientific stand point this doesn’t make any sense. Let’s review exactly how we store and lose fat.

• We store fat when we consume more calories than we burn. Simple, end of story, no arguing this point.
• We lose fat when we burn more calories than we consume. Also simple, also end of story, also no arguing this point.

The timing of your workout is completely irrelevant for either of these things to happen. We are only talking about calories in vs. calories out. It doesn’t matter when those calories go in, or when they go out, it just matters how many go in and how many go out.


Picture the following example:

Let’s say your body needs 2000 calories per day for regular functioning (in other words your basal metabolic rate).

Now let’s say you eat 1900 calories today, and do a workout that burns 200 calories. It won’t matter if you ate 1 meal, or two meals, or three meals, and did two workouts that burned 100 calories each, or one workout that burned 200 calories. It still adds up to a 300 calorie deficit for the day.

If your metabolism is going to burn 2000 calories today regardless of how much you eat, then eating 1900 calories will force your body to find another 100 calories from stored energy, and likely most from fat.

Burn 200 more calories at a workout, and now you have created a 300 calorie deficit for the day. If you can do this for about 12 days you will have most likely burned off a pound of body fat.

The time of day you do your workout or decide to eat will have no effect on this overall fat loss over time. There is no magic to doing cardio on an empty stomach in the morning or any other time of day for that matter. Your body doesn’t store or lose body fat so fast that it will make any real difference when you workout or eat over the course of one day. Consistency over the course of weeks and months will be the key to fat loss. Not the timing of any one single workout.

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John Barban is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a varsity strength and conditioning coach. His trademarked workout program: The 6 Minute Circuits Workout  is designed to get a full body cardio and muscle toning workout in the comfort of your own home. John is a senior contributor at http://www.grrlathlete.com where you can sign up to get insider information in the nutrition and fitness industry. You can ask John a question on the http://www.grrlathlete.freeforums.org dedicated to support women with their fitness and nutrition goals.

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