Cardio with a Stimulant Stack and Empty Stomach?

I am actually against any use of caffeine, ephedrine, or aspirin for recreational purposes. This will obviously jade my response a bit, but I can elaborate a bit on the empty stomach portion of the question.

In order to have an empty stomach, you're going to have to be performing your cardio upon waking. I'm assuming your diet is in check and you eat regular meals throughout the day. The morning, after a 6-10 hour fast, is the only time your stomach will actually be empty.

The common thought process with fasted cardio is that you will use fat or carb sources from present stores in your body rather than from the food being digested in your stomach. There are multiple problems with this way of thinking.
1. You're going into your cardio fasted, which will cause your cardio session to be weakened, reducing your overall amount of fat burned if performing LISS and reducing your ability to perform a true HIIT session. The inability to perform at max potential during HIIT will reduce the fat burning effects of that session. You will not be able to perform at your peak on an empty stomach. Period.
Would you go into a weight routine in a fasted state? Answer that question honestly and reconsider why you are thinking of doing fasted cardio.
2. You're betting on the fact that you're burning massive amounts of fat during your actual cardio session. If you're performing HIIT, you're virtually BURNING NO FAT during your session, and you'll never be able to get around this. Your body is hardwired to use carb stores for energy when working at peak performance.

HIIT is based around peak performance and you aren't performing it to burn fat directly. You're performing it to increase metabolism, increase your daily calories burned, and increase cardiovascular health, which will in turn burn fat through indirect means.

Going into a HIIT session with anything less than a properly fueled body is a mistake.

I want you to think about how much fat you're actually burning during a session of LISS as well. I'm talking, during the actual time you are on your cardio machine. Lets say you perform LISS for 50 minutes and you burn 400 calories. Now, you're not using pure fat as an energy source to fuel that workout either, so we'll take that into account as well. I'm going to say that you're using 50% fat and 50% carbs for energy.

What we have is 200 calories or work, which was fueled by fat. There are 9 calories per gram of fat, so that will give us 22.22 grams of fat burned during the actual time of your cardio.

22 GRAMS! You're looking at 1/20th of a pound of fat burned during that LISS session. You can see that there is SO MUCH MORE AT PLAY than the actual fat burned during your cardio sessions. Is it worth it for you to deprive yourself of proper nutrition, skip breakfast before your cardio, and be weakened during your workout for 1/20th of a pound of fat?

Your answer should be NO. Look at the big picture here and focus on overall calorie levels and forget about whether or not you're burning maximum amounts of fat DURING your cardio sessions. Focus more on the effect they provide on your big picture plan.

The next time you hear someone say that they're burning lots of fat while they do their cardio, you can tell them that they actually aren't......but be prepared to explain yourself if they want to debate Or you can just refer them to this explanation to make it easier on yourself.