We all want to eat the kinds of foods that make us feel better, live longer, but there's so much conflicting information out there, so many nutrition opinions.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

It's my job to give you the information you need to make the healthiest choices possible.

Did you know that you can burn off significantly more body fat exercising before meals rather than after

them?

Here's our first story.

What is the optimal exercise timing for weight loss?

Is it better to exercise in the morning or the evening?

Before breakfast or after breakfast?

There is a Nobel Prize-winning exercise physiologist who said he always ran a mile every morning

before breakfast.

Was he right?

Let's find out.

More than a dozen experiments have been published, comparing the amount of fat burned in a fasted versus fed state,

and every single one found more fat was burned on an empty stomach.

On average, a single bout of low to moderate intensity activity before a meal

burned off 3 grams more fat than the same amount of exercise after a meal.

It's about 3 quarters of a pat of butters worth of fat,

enough to improve insulin sensitivity, same amount of exercise,

but more fat loss all because of timing.

Now just because you burn more fat while you're exercising doesn't necessarily mean you end up with less fat at the end of the day.

Maybe your body offsets the extra fat loss that occurs during exercise with little extra fat storage when you finally do eat, balancing it out.

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