fasted training

Once in a while I workout when I am hungry, or on really empty stomach (but not feeling any hunger at the moment). Since going paleo I can fast hours and feel ok, with a lot of energy and no touch of the old nausea as I used to have on old carb-focused diet. Most of the time I don't even plan on fasting (even though a lot of paleo do it for health reasons), it just happens - I forget to take lunch with me, or don't eat breakfast etc. There are many studies that show benefits of hunger and fasted state for human organism. Some hormones work better, the body has a chance to cleanse a bit, get a breath, strike a balance. If you workout when hungry, which was very common for paleolithic peoples (workout = hunting/gathering/escaping/building), your growth hormone is released, insulin sensitivity improves , and it's even more easy for you body to use fat as your fuel.

In this blog entry there is even more explanation on the benefits, with links to some new studies. Here is just a small excerpt:

As you can see, the fasted training group beat the fed training group on almost all relevant parameters. More importantly for some perhaps, the fasted training group saw significant improvements in all parameters relevant to improving body composition and health, where as the fed training group saw comparatively lackluster results here.

This study strengthens the notions I covered here, which is that fasted training may provide some unique benefits to those training in the fasted state, whether it be endurance training, conditioning or bodybuilding. However, this study may be somewhat more relevant considering the higher exercise intensity used, which is closer to, albeit not exactly similar, to CrossFit, kettlebell training and weight training. That is, activities which rely on glucose utilization to a greater degree than fat oxidation.