Is it better to exercise before or after eating breakfast?!

Is it better to exercise before or after eating breakfast?

which practice gives the best results-fat burning wise.

It is better to exercise after eating breakfast, but not just after when your body is too busy digesting (wait for an hour).


I already answered your question but I feel my answer needs some explaining so here it it…

The best way to burn fat while exercising is to do low intensity cardio for a long time.
(60 to 80% of your Max Heart Rate…your MHR being 220 minus your age).
If you don’t have a heart monitor, just make sure you breath heavier and you sweat a little.
After 20 to 30 minutes, your body will start using your fat reserve as fuel, slowly and steadily, and for every 3,500 calories you will spend exercising, you will use one pound of fat reserve (half a pound to one pound of fat loss a week is best, which is about 250 to 500 calories/day of exercising).

Some people will exercise before eating breakfast either because they cannot wait one hour after breakfast (they have to go to work for example) or they think since they did not eat yet, their body will have no choice but to use fat reserve…
Working out before breakfast is pretty hard. I personally cannot do it (I tried it a couple of times and I feel exhausted now just thinking about the experience). I felt everything was harder and I had no energy compared to my normal exercise time, after eating a meal and waiting one or two hours. Of course, people used to exercising before breakfast might not notice that the workout would be so much easier if they had eaten before. Also they may have no choice because they often feel they’ll be too tired in the evening to exercise, after a whole day at work. They could eat dinner, wait one hour and be full of energy but then, it is not advisable to exercise to close to the time you’re going to bed because your metabolism will be reved up and you might find it hard to fall asleep. Working people exercising before breakfast are between a rock and a hard place…and kudos for them to choose at least one or the other instead of nothing.

Also, everybody is different. Some people are morning persons, some are night persons…some like to wake up early, some like to sleep late…You have to listen to your body and exercise when you feel your best.

Before breakfast, you were fasting all night, this is why that meal is called “break” “fast”, because you’re breaking your fast. You have low sugar (glycogen) levels so you have low energy, everything will feel harder and you won’t be able to reach your full potential.
After you eat breakfast, your body is very busy digesting so you should not ask too much of it (this is where the “wait one hour after you eat before swimming” rule comes from…).
One to two hours after you eat, then you are full of energy, plenty of sugar in your blood and muscle, and will get a very satisfying work out…it could be after breakfast or after lunch. After dinner gets a little tricky because you do not want to exercise too much in the evening because you could end up with insomnia, your metabolism will be too high for you to fall asleep.

I like to time my exercising so by the time I’m done, it will be time for either lunch or dinner so when I eat, I really get the feeling I deserve those calories. Plus I get the full energy and good workout because I ate before and waited long enough for my body to be done with the digestive process.

People saying that you will burn the calories you just ate if you work out after a meal did not really think hard enough about what they were saying.
The fat reserve your body is using doing low cardio does not come from your last meal but from what you ate before, like yesterday. This is why players preparing for a big game will eat tons of pasta or potatoes (carbohydrates) the day before so they get a lot of energy the next day.

Also people saying that eating after a workout would make the workout pointless (what about the muscle gain and the conditioning of the heart?), did not really think hard enough about what they were saying (I know…same people). So what? Are you supposed to spend hundreds of calories exercising and NOT eat? The whole point is to be able to eat whatever you want without getting fat because you’re in shape. You have to eat, at least as much as your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, what you need to just be alive), otherwise your body will just adjust your BMR lower (thinking you have no access to food and trying to save your life from starvation) so you’ll end up just getting fatter and fatter when you have enough and decide to eat normally again.

BMR: women: lbs x 0.453 = kilograms x 7.18 + 795
BMR: men: lbs x 0.453 = kilograms x 10.2 + 879

If you want to burn fat…
First, make sure you eat as much as your BMR so your body does not lower it and of course, make sure you do not eat more than your BMR, as long as you want to lose fat reserve, so any exercise you’re doing, your body will use your fat reserve as fuel.

Second, do lots of low intensity cardio, the longer, the better.

Third, gain some muscle mass by doing strength/weight training. The more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism will be and here is the best fat burning system you can dream of.
You could gain weight but the good kind, muscle weight. Each pound of muscle will need about 30 calories a day just for maintenance…(one pound of fat just needs 2 calories..) get in shape, add 4 pounds of muscle to your body and you will need 120 calories a day to maintenance those 4 pounds of muscle or 3,600 calories a month which is more than one pound of fat that will be used by those 4 pounds of muscle…every month…without you having to do anything about it.

Keep exercising to maintain those muscles and once you have no more fat reserve, start eating more, as much more as you’re exercising, and keep exercising to maintain all those muscle (use it or lose it).

Give yourself 2 or 3 months to get in shape. Watch out for your calories intake (BMR) and do not worry if you do not lose weight or even if you gain weight (could be muscle mass, which is very good). Use a tape measure which is more accurate than a scale.

I wish you the best.