Fasted cardio joins the mix
Fasted cardio is one of the exercise strategies I've heard about for some time now. But I also heard a lot of people claim it can be a bad idea, because it may cost you muscle mass. Yet, there are plenty of folks who feel this strategy has worked well for them. So I've had mixed feelings about trying it. And hey, I'm not usually a 6AM up and at 'em kind of gal!
OTOH, I could use more exercise and I'm not good about eating first thing anyway. So yesterday, when my T-Nation email newsletter came through and I saw there was an article on fasted cardio, I decided to have a read.
Anyway, the upshot of the roundtable is that fasted cardio *may* be useful, depending on one's goals. For me, the indicators look like it could indeed be worth trying. I'm a classic endomorph... I'm fat and I suspect a little extra exercise daily wouldn't hurt me at all, provided my feet are cooperative. I plan to aim for about 15-20 minutes a day this week and see how it goes.
I'm thinking that this will be a better idea for dealing with summer heat as well... my house is not all that well insulated, so it tends to be on the warm side for indoor exercise, even with the A/C running full bore. Getting up and getting it done with early sounds good! And I'm not planning to stop water aerobics or other exercise, this will be in addition, so extra calories burned.
So this morning, I got up, put my heart rate monitor on, got dressed, had a half serving of protein powder in water as recommended, shook up a water bottle with some BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) and off I went. OK, I didn't go very far... all the way to the living room, where I turned on the ceiling fan, the boombox and hopped on the Nordic Track. As it turns out, just skiing on the machine without the arm exerciser was easily sufficient to get my heart rate to a comfortable 72-75%. And so that's what I did, for 30 minutes and 2.2 miles. If I start feeling less strong, or it's too hard on my feet, then I'll rethink the matter. I certainly felt fine this morning!
Has anyone else done fasted cardio? Did you feel like it worked for fat loss?
