As your body gets fat adapted, certain types of exercise are easier to maintain than others. Thomas helps you stay in the proper "Cardio Zone." For more on this subject, check out Dr. Peter Attia's video on Exercise for Weight Loss 101.

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Cardio during a fasted state can be your absolute best friend. Why? Because cardio and fasting utilize the same mechanism to oxidize or burn fat.

You see, when you're in a fasted state, your body releases stored adipose tissue in the form of free fatty acids into the bloodstream and you burn them. That's why essentially you lose body fat when you're fasting, but when you're doing cardio, your body is working a very parallel pathway. 

You see, cardio utilizes what is called beta oxidation, where your body again takes free fatty acids that are normally stored in the adipose tissue, liberates them, combines them with oxygen to create energy. That's where the word aerobic comes from. In fact, aerobic literally means"with oxygen." It means that you're moving at such a low intensity that your body has time to liberate fats and combine it with oxygen that you breathe in to create energy "with oxygen." So the benefit of doing cardio along with a fast is you get to capitalize on both of these mechanisms that are very, very parallel. So you essentially get to maximize your fat burning potential, which doesn't just give you fat loss but also gives you more cellular energy. 

People often find that their aerobic capacity improves during a fast. Imagine that! I can give you a personal example. When I'm deeper into a fast, like even 24 to 36 hours, I find that my ability to do cardio, my ability to run, and my endurance is significantly better and at first it didn't make sense, but when you start looking at the physiology, you understand that the cells are just operating very efficiently at what they're designed to operate on. 

One of the things I want you to pay attention to is something called a cardio zone, and Dr. Peter Attia references it a little bit in some of his videos. Cardio zones are just where you focus on your percentage of maximum output. So one of the things I want you to focus on when you're doing cardio during your fasted state is this: if you can't sing a song consistently while doing your cardio, you're working at too high of an intensity. Another simple test is the talking test. If you can't hold a conversation without losing your breath, then you're working out a little bit too hard. You need to keep your intensity down to about 60 to 70% of your maximum energy effort, your maximum heart rate, so this kind of cardio is what's referred to as "Zone 2" cardio, which is right in the sweet spot of where you want to be. This is going to make sure that your body still stays within that aerobic or fat utilization mode and doesn't cross into what is called the anaerobic or carbohydrate utilization mode, which I'll talk about in another video series.

So many of us, myself included, come from the school of thought that you have to be in a fed state. You have to have fuel in your system before you work out, whether it's weightlifting or cardio. I grew up reading muscle building magazines that consistently told me that if you don't have fuel in your tank, you're going to bonk and you're not going to be able to work out. That just isn't the case anymore. Modern science is proving it. In fact, I would argue that you can get a better workout. So capitalize on that fasting period to get the best workouts of your life.

The Ideal Type of Cardio for Fasting

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