Fasted training: Yes or No?

I spoke about fasted training on instagram yesterday and got a few messages asking about the impact on hormones for women…

Women will be going through menopause, working a full time job, starting a side hustle, keeping fit, cooking every meal for their husband, cleaning the whole house, looking after 2 kids, caring for their elderly parents & surviving on 3 hours sleep…

& then worry that they didn’t have breakfast before a morning workout and thats the issue.

.. it’s not, you’re pretty damn capable of doing some exercise before breakfast if you want to*

Should you train fasted?

It depends…

There is no meaningful benefit to non athletes. (You get some potentially beneficial adaptations to doing some training fasted or training in a carbohydrate depleted state for endurance performance most notably mitochondrial biogenesis - geek out on that)

The main benefits to most people are convenience & dietary adherence.

If you’re training early then waking up even earlier to eat will reduce sleep time. You’re also probably unlikely to enjoy your 5am breakfast in the same way you would after your workout. Which, in my experience, usually impacts dietary adherence.

Take home:

It’s really preference.

If you feel better eating before training then eat before. If it suits you better not eating before early morning workouts then don’t - it will make no difference to the standard 40-60min gym workout - you have plenty energy stores from the previous day.

I have got in great shape training fasted first thing in the morning and I’ve got in great shape training with 3-4 meals in me in the evening.

The most important thing is you get your workout in (SHOCKING REVELATION I KNOW!)

Happy training!

ESG x

*There are a few exceptions to this one of them being hypothalamic amenorrhea where I would avoid fasted training (& reduce training volume significantly anyway)