Interval Training First Thing in the Morning on an Empty Stomach

Doing interval training or steady-state cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach does not burn more body fat and it's a bad idea for several reasons. First and foremost, it goes again basic human physiology in that we eat to live, not live to eat. When you wake up in the morning your body has digested most, if not all your food, from the night before and you are low on carbs (glycogen) or depleted of them, so making your body do work with little or no fuel to go on is hard on your body's physiological systems.

Losing body fat is all about burning enough total calories per day to create a negative caloric balance that will cause your body to burn body fat. This means you will not reduce body fat if you taking in a surplus of calories. You can do cardio first thing in morning all you want, but if you eat too many daily calories you will not lose body fat. And it doesn't matter if you burn 300 calories by doing cardio first thing in the morning, or in the afternoon or evening. Burning 300 calories a day will always be 300 calories a day no matter what time of day you burn them. So you might as well burn some calories with some food in your stomach. Besides, the last thing I want to do after waking up is interval training or steady-state cardio. The first thing I do is drink a cup of coffee and relax.

I have also heard about people who weight train first thing in the morning on an empty stomach which is even crazier. The human body needs food to live, work, and play. And you especially need to eat for planned exercise. So it is best to fuel the body up with food and wait an hour or two before doing cardio exercise or any other type of exercise like weight lifting or playing sports.