'Over nourished and 'over weight' are two very different things.

If I eat 3000 calories of highly nutritious fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins then I MIGHT be well nourished, depending on how and where those foods were grown. As our soil becomes increasingly depleted of nutrients, we therefore have foods with less and less nutrients.

On the other hand, if I eat 3000 calories of Coca Cola, potato chips, and candy bars I will be under nourished yet overfed. From that, an overweight condition will develop.

I am not that large of a person, so 1200 calories of nourishing foods might be all that I need. If the weight on the scale goes up over time, then I'm eating too much in terms of calories. If the scale goes down over time, I"m likely not eating enough in terms of calories.

In our current state of agriculture and soil quality, I doubt that anyone is actually over nourished in terms of vitamins and minerals, yet they can certainly be overfed in terms of calories.

There are definitely many opinions around this, all with some scientific backing on what is 'best'.

Many fitness competitors, bodybuilders, and those looking to get as lean as possible for a contest will use some fasted exercise in the morning. Anecdotally, it has helped many people to break through fat loss plateaus and lose even more body fat.

There was a study done just last year by Brad Schoenfeld that showed that working out before eating didn't necessarily burn more calories than working out after eating, yet it did burn more fatty acids as fuel.

The other benefit of exercising and even delaying your first meal altogether is the concept of 'autophagy', which means that our body can use the time of not eating to 'clean up' its bad cells. You can think about it like this: we are either eating and building up, or we are fasting and breaking down. Yet that breaking down component means keeping our cells healthy by taking out the cellular trash. This includes ridding out bodies of cells that aren't growing correctly or have some sort of defect that we need to take care of.

So yes, there are benefits to exercising before eating. Is it best for performance? Maybe not. Is it a valid option for trying to reach a level of more optimal health? There is quite a bit of research that says 'YES', it very well might be.

Our body is connected in many ways. If you remove one aspect that system, it affects all of the other systems.

The heart and the brain are connected, much like the gut and the brain are connected.

Almost 90% of the neurotransmitters that our brain uses to make us feel excited, happy, and motivated are actually made in our 'gut' or our digestive system. If our gut is happy, then our brain is happy.

The heart definitely DOES have its own nervous system. You can remove a heart from a person's body and will continue to beat as long as it has fuel for the cells which are called the mitochondria.

Does the heart THINK and FEEL like the brain? Those two systems are too interconnected to distinguish their functions when it comes to thinking and feeling.

The key to waking up and establishing that cycle is to expose your eyes to sunlight.

When you wake up, try to immediately go expose yourself to sunlight (even if its cold). When full spectrum sunlight reaches your eyes, it travels to a part of the brain called the Suprachiasmic Nucleus (SCN). This then sends a signal to your brain (the hypothalamus) that its time to wake up.

The hypothalamus is the part of your brain that controls many hormones in your body. So sunlight is the 'wake up' signal for the brain to change production of hormones that keep us up and awake such as cortisol.

Doing this also helps you sleep the following night as it controls the circadian cycle of melatonin, which is our 'sleep well' hormone.

So sunlight or full spectrum light first thing in the morning will help you wake up as well as help you go to sleep at a good time the following night. If you sleep well during the night, you'll have an easier time waking up and staying awake the following morning.