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"Morning Fat Burn from an Orange County Renegade Personal Trainer"

By Chris McComb

There are the people that get up at 5 or 6 am every day to jump on the treadmill, and then there are those that go to the gym for their cardio on the way home from work. Is one method better than the other? Well, it is a matter up for debate, but if you are doing cardio at all, you are already ahead of the game. Here is a look at the case for morning cardio.

Scientifically speaking, there are two schools of thought that personal trainers seem to go back and forth on. There are those personal trainers on the side of morning cardio who state that doing cardio first thing in the morning and before breakfast allows you to burn up stored body fat and increase your metabolic rate all day long.

On the other side of this issue, there is the energy balance hypothesis that many trainers will argue which basically says that if you burn more calories than you consume in a day, it does not matter when you burn them, or if they come from fat or carbohydrate.

Any personal trainer will tell you that the time of day is not the #1 factor in weight loss. Doing cardio at all and following a good nutrition plan is the way to lose weight, but there is a strong case for morning cardio. First, when you wake up after sleeping and essentially "fasting? for 8 hours, your body's stores of glycogen is low, especially if you are on a low carb diet.

Doing your cardio at this time will let your body burn more fat because the glycogen stores are so much lower. In addition to this, if you do your cardio before breakfast, your insulin stores are also low. Insulin interferes with your body's ability to burn fat, eating food increases your insulin production, so doing cardio before eating any food will allow you to burn more fat.

There is also less glucose in your system in the early morning, due to the fact that you have been fasting for 8 hours during sleep, and the absence of glucose allows more fat to burn as well.

Another argument for doing cardio on en empty stomach is that when you eat and then workout, you are burning up what you just ate, not tapping into your stored fat. And, lastly, if you do your cardio in the morning, your metabolism stays elevated for some time, allowing you to burn fat into the day.

Doing evening cardio is good, you burn calories during your workout, but you lose the long term metabolism lift, as your metabolism slows down once you go to sleep.

Those are the scientific arguments, but let's take a look at the real life reasons. Getting your cardio in the morning makes you feel great all day by releasing mood enhancing endorphins. You know how great you feel after working out, why wait till after work to get that feeling? It is also a "wake-up" to do a.m. cardio. you are energized and ready to go after a workout.

Starting out with cardio may also help curb your appetite for the rest of the day, and it increases your metabolic rate for the rest of the day, helping to burn up what you do eat. Getting up every day to do cardio also helps your body get on a schedule, your body adjusts to your routine, helping you to get up at the same time every day. You can always fit your cardio in when it is the first item of the day, there is nothing making you run late yet!

And, most importantly, when you get your cardio out of the way first thing in the morning you don't run the risk of not having time later after work. The temptation of blowing your cardio workout off in favor of meeting friends for happy hour after your rough day is gone. you already did your cardio!

While you are on the right track by doing your cardio, no matter what time it is, the science behind morning cardio may benefit you and help you with your battle of the bulge. Take this personal trainers word for it, "real life reasons" can be a major benefit though, and may take you up a notch in your workouts?harder, faster, stronger, and more of them!

Now, go set your alarm for 5am! Those running shoes are calling your name!

About the Author:

Chris McCombs is a personal fitness trainer and is the owner of Orange County's Positively Fit Personal Training. He has helped an army of local Orange County residents lose fat, tone up and get into mind blowing shape. Check out his Orange County Personal Fitness Trainer website here for a ton of amazing client success stories.