The secret to losing weight on a 9am-5pm job is an early lunch, a hungry afternoon and an evening gym session, scientists have discovered.
Fasted cardio, or exercising on an empty stomach, is a tried and tested way weight loss tool that some use first thing in the morning before breakfast.
But most people prefer to exercise at night, and now researchers have shown that adopting the tactic during the day before a post-work workout burns 70 percent more fat than eating before working out.
People who had eaten lunch at 11:30 a.m. and then didn’t eat again for seven hours before exercising at 6:30 p.m. were found to have burned 7.7 grams of fat after a 30-minute bike ride.
Those who had another meal at 4:30 pm and therefore were not hungry or on an empty stomach They were found to only burn 4.5 grams.
Scientists at Nottingham Trent University recruited 16 people who followed a strict daily diet and exercise regimen.
All people in the study had breakfast at 8:30 a.m. (golden syrup-flavored porridge, a cereal bar, and strawberry yogurt) and lunch at 11:30 a.m. (tuna mayonnaise or chicken mayonnaise sandwiches, ready salty chips and a chocolate bar).
Half were not allowed to eat before going to the gym at 6:30 pm and riding a bike for half an hour. The other half ate at 4:30 p.m. before the same workout at 6:30 p.m.
After finishing the half-hour cycle, the participants received a meal of pasta in tomato sauce 15 minutes later and were allowed to eat as much as they wanted until they felt “comfortably full and satisfied.”
‘A powerful way to increase the benefits of exercise’
Participants would do the experiment twice, once in the fasting state and once in the fed group.
The data shows that, on average, the group ate about 100 more calories at dinner, but over the course of the day they actually ate 443 fewer calories.
“We wanted to explore the impact of exercising on an early evening fast, which we found to be the most popular time to exercise during the week,” said Tommy Slater, a sports science researcher in the University of California College of Science and Technology. Nottingham Trent. he told The Telegraph.
“Fast before evening exercise could benefit some elements of health by increasing the amount of fat burned during exercise or by reducing the number of calories consumed throughout the day.
“If done regularly, it can improve how the body deals with spikes in blood sugar after eating.”
However, the research, published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, found that seven hours without eating had some disadvantages, with the fasted group performing worse on the exercise test and also reporting lower levels of motivation pre-workout, energy, disposition and enjoyment.
These mental roadblocks can, Slater said, “make it more difficult for some people to move forward in the long run.”
Dr David Clayton, an expert in nutrition and exercise physiology at Nottingham Trent University, added: “Combining exercise and fasting can be a powerful way to increase the benefits of exercise, so we’d like to test this over a period of longer time and explore other ways we can make fasting easier and more convenient for people.”
“This study showed that fasting for seven hours before evening exercise can be an effective method of reducing net energy intake while increasing fat oxidation,” the researchers write in their paper.
“However, the chronic success of this intervention may be compromised by increases in appetite and reductions in voluntary performance, as well as reductions in motivation to exercise and enjoyment of exercise sessions.”
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