It's 6AM Saturday morning when Big Bob's alarm goes off, throwing an unexpected jolt of auditory
sensory into Big Bob's brain.
He got up feeling groggy, tired, and really really hungry.
He made his way to the kitchen to prep a frosted bagel.
But wait!
He shouldn't eat just yet!
Yesterday, Skinny Steve from work was telling Big Bob about how he lost a lot of weight
doing something called FASTED CARDIO!
The concept is simple.
"All you have to do is eat NOTHING before you do your morning cardio," Skinny Steve
said.
Big bob was amazed and couldn't wait to give it a shot!
You see, Big Bob has been struggling with his weight lately.
He was in the best shape of his life 3 years ago when he was going out with Fit Fiona.
He then started getting a bit lazy, put on a few dad bod pounds before dad bod was cool,
and then she left him.
Since then, he tries to at least jog more often but he's never motivated enough to do
it regularly.
But after seeing Skinny Steve, formerly known as Supersize Steve, lose all that weight from
fasted cardio, he knew he had to give it a shot!
So before he can slap that frosted bagel into the toaster, he instead slapped on his favorite
and only pair of running shoes and set out for a morning jog.
For the first few minutes, Big Bob felt quite okay.
His ankles were achy and his knees were a bit squeaky.
A few minutes later, he felt wheezy and quite exhausted.
It caught Big Bob by quite a surprise, seeing that the few times he jogged several weeks
ago, he was able to go much further.
He kept trucking along anyway, hoping that he might just catch a second wind.
Unfortunately, that wind never showed up.
A few more minutes into the jog, Big Bob just had to stop and take a breather.
What Big Bob didn't realize is, that by not eating anything before his jog, he didn't
have much energy in him.
Although he CAN jog without eating anything, he would be able to go further and maybe even
faster had he had some sort of carbohydrate, such as a fruit or health bar, beforehand.
His body could have used the glucose from the food to produce immediate energy.
But because Big Bob didn't eat, his body had to rely on the small amounts of glycogen stored
within his muscle cells.
Big Bob wasn't ready to quit just yet.
He stood back up with his head held high and trucked along.
Unfortunately for Big Bob, at this point, his body was really low on fuel and began
tapping into his liver glycogen stores.
When his body starts tapping into these stores, it also begins creating energy by breaking
down muscle tissue and converting it into fuel in a process known as catabolysis.
The good news, Big Bob is still able to keep running.
The bad news, the body starts to slowly eat away at Big Bob's muscle, or at least what's
left of it.
Big Bob goes on to give fasted cardio a shot for two weeks before jumping on the scale
to check out his progress.
He was at a decently sized 250 pounds before.
Today, he comes in weighing at an underwhelming 249 pounds.
Not exactly the result he was expecting.
So what gives?
Well, according to many many studies, exercising in a fasted state do, in fact, promote more
weight loss.
Problem is, the differences is very small, insignificant even.
And there's even studies that found the exact opposite to be true.
But the real kicker here is that the abundant research in fasted cardio all point back to
one thing: Big Bob can exercise a lot longer and end up burning more calories, had he eaten
something before his jogs.
In fact, one research even found that cyclists subjects that were given carbs before their
test were able to cycle an entire HOUR more than their fasted counterparts.
That's between 400 to 600 more calories burned!
That leaves one question: How was Skinny Steve able to lose all that weight?
Well, it comes down to one thing: consistency.
Regardless of whether fasted cardio indeed works better or not, consistently exercising
is the key here.
This goes for any other type of trendy exercise formats.
As long as it's done and done regularly, there will always be results.
Fasted cardio is no exception.
As for Big Bob, he's quickly given up on fasted cardio, but he just heard about this amazing
diet that Husky Howard was trying called the Paleo Diet and can't wait to give it a try!
What are your thoughts on fasted cardio?