Researchers at the University of Bath in England have found that working out before eating breakfast might be better for overall health in the long run.
Though the correlation between meal timing and performance isn’t new knowledge—athletes have long utilized connections between the two—it hasn’t progressed much farther than simple facts. For example, concepts such as eating before a workout to raise blood sugar and allow the body to utilize the sugar as fuel, and fasting before a moderate workout to force your body to rely on stored carbohydrates and fat reservoirs are common practices.
However, studies looking at the correlation between exercise and eating have mainly focused on athletes and athletic performance, not the everyday person trying to better their general health. Until now, as the University of Bath studied average people and their fat cells.
The study looked at 10 overweight, sedentary, but otherwise healthy men with lifestyles representative of the everyday person. Before the men embarked on any exercise, the researchers noted the fitness and resting metabolic rates of each man, also taking blood and fat tissue samples.
On two separate mornings, the men walked at a moderate pace—a pace that should alert the body to rely mainly on fat reservoirs as fuel—on a treadmill for an hour. One morning, the men skipped breakfast. The other morning, they ate a large, 600 calorie breakfast supplied by the scientists about two hours before the exercise.