It is true that exercise in the morning on an empty stomach is a helpful way to lose some weight, but there are better reasons to exercise in the morning. It can replace coffee as your morning wake up call. It energizes the body for the day, and while it may be hard to get some exercise in the morning (for more than one reason), the pay off is worth it. It doesn’t take much either; 15 minutes on a bike will be very noticeable.
If your goal is to lose weight morning exercise is a good way to get your body active which will help you lose weight over the entire day, doing it on an empty stomach is not necessary. If you eat something shortly before you go for a run you will burn some of that food, but you would burn that food during the day anyway, so as long as you don’t eat more to compensate for possibly being a little extra hungry, you can eat breakfast before you exercise.
Water is also extremely important for hydration and to allow your muscles to grow and be healthy during any given exercise. Have a glass before you run, but don’t drink so much you cramp up.
As far as what you should be eating, well that’s up to you. Protein is good to build muscles, it doesn’t contain many calories, and a diet of high protein will help you lose weight quickly. Carbohydrates, such as bread, provide a great deal of energy, but if you don’t use that energy it will be stored as fat. Protein would also get stored as fat if you didn’t burn it, but you’re very likely to burn off all the protein you eat. There are cereals and oats that contain some protein, some carbohydrates, vitamins and fibre. Fibre is useful if you don’t want to feel hunger during the day, it will stay in your system longer than most of other foods. Remember that you need plenty of vitamins and vegetables too to keep everything in your body running smoothly.
So if you want to lose weight, keep hydrated all the time, get some exercise in the morning, and stay away from fatty foods and carbohydrates at night. You can eat carbohydrates if you know you’re going to be active, even walking will burn them off, just don’t eat a bowl of pasta an hour before bedtime!
