Does Training Fasted Burn More Fat?

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF TRAINING FASTED ACTUALLY BURNS MORE FAT, THEN YOU WANT TO READ THIS ARTICLE.

Depending on who you ask, you’ve probably heard someone claim training fasted will allow you to lose fat faster.

Regardless of your expertise on the subject, if you want to shed body fat, you’re likely to consider anything that’s going to speed up this process.

Before you buy into the hype, we’re going to discuss what training fasted entails and who it’s best for.

Let’s begin.

WHAT IS FASTED TRAINING?

Regardless of whether you fall into the belief that fasted training is a means to accelerate fat loss, it’s important you understand what it means to be fasted.

Training fasted is exactly what it sounds like. Simply put, it means to train in a fasted state. Or training in a state where you insulin is NOT elevated.

See, when you consume food (not just limited to carbs but also fats and protein), your insulin levels will rise.

Every moment of the day, your insulin is undulating between a storing and burning state.

The key to fat loss is to put your body in a state where it’s burning more than it’s storing.

So when someone makes the statement: “They’re fasted”, this simply means, their insulin levels are not elevated.

WHAT IS FED TRAINING?

Inversely, when you are not fasted, you are in a “fed state”. All this means is that your insulin levels are elevated due to the consumption of calories.

…And yes, your insulin levels will rise from consuming protein and fat, not just carbs.

You should probably steer clear of the girl or guy at your gym who says carbs are the only macro-nutrient that spikes your insulin.

While there are many benefits to training with some fuel in you, we’ll discuss that in a separate article.

WHO IS FASTED TRAINING BEST FOR?

Perhaps when you caught wind of this concept, you decided you’d test it out for yourself.

Maybe you switched your training from afternoons/evenings to first thing in the morning. Maybe you even cut off the time period in which you consume your final meal of the day, so you’re really fasted the next morning.

There’s a good chance, if you’ve always eaten some amount of food prior to working out, you experienced a moderate dip in energy when you made the switch to fasted training.

This is even more likely if you incorporate resistance training with a focus on strength.

I’ll make this easy to digest, fasted training is best if:

• You enjoy training fasted
• Your training has to occur earlier than you’d like to begin eating(and you enjoy training fasted)

The last thing you should do is incorporate fasted training if it significantly lowers your performance – which for many, it does.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The reality is fasted training isn’t more effective than training in a fed state.

Whether or not you should incorporate fasted training comes down to one question:

• Do you enjoy it?

There’s no bypassing the overlying principal of energy balance. When you eat more than you burn, you store fat. When you burn more than you eat, you lose fat. The rules still apply even when you train fasted.

You can make minor tweaks to the way you approach fat loss, for example, by incorporating fasted training, however, if you are consuming more than you’re burning, you’ll end up spinning your wheels without experiencing any significant changes.

If you’re someone who trains harder, exercises more will power, and generally feels better in a fasted state, by all means – train fasted.

The most important aspect to consider when selecting a dieting or training protocol is whether or not you can consistently adhere to it.

Rather than obsessing over what’s a slightly more optimal state to train in, focus on the quality of your training sessions.

If you are looking for an added boost to your workouts that is guaranteed to make you sweat more and improve mind muscle connection, and ultimately help you in accelerating your fat loss efforts,  check out what our athletes are using to enhance their training.

Cory

@Cory_fit