Food before or after exercise?
Chrysalid2014
Posts: 1,038 Member
I'm trying to lose weight (fat) and have read conflicting reports on whether to eat before exercise or not. Some claim more weight is lost if you exercise in a fasted state; others say that if you don't eat before you exercise you will just burn up your own muscle. I know I'm not supposed to eat before a Yoga session but what about swimming/walking and other cardio activities, or body conditioning?
From my own experience I usually find I'm hungry before exercise and then when I start walking or swimming the hunger goes away.
From my own experience I usually find I'm hungry before exercise and then when I start walking or swimming the hunger goes away.
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Individual choice based on comfort. Won't affect results0
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Sometimes I even have food during exercise...0
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cwolfman13 wrote: »Sometimes I even have food during exercise...
I do this too when my blood sugar level drops during one of my longer HIIT workouts.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Sometimes I even have food during exercise...
To be fair, is it really "food" or is it some kind of gel or chew?
(Although I know plenty of cyclists who take real food like sandwiches along on their rides)
To answer the OP it kinda depends on my situation at the moment. I won't eat before a run or a swim if I can avoid it. Before a bike ride, sure as long as it is a steady-state endurance effort. Throw in intervals and anything in my stomach will be on the pavement. I generally try to make sure there is at least an hour or more between eating anything substantial and a hard workout.
Afterwards I try to eat a small snack right away with some protein, assuming I am not headed soon to a real meal.
However will it change how you lose weight? No not at all. It is all a matter of preference, and also your ability to be fueled for the workout.
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I have a strict rule to always eat before, or after, or before and after, or before during and after, unless of course I'm training fasted....
Calorie balance over the course of a day (or week) is the important thing for fat loss not meal timing. So eat when it suits you or in the way gives you the best training performance.
You won't "burn up your muscle" from fasted training - your body has plenty of energy reserves.0 -
You won't "burn up your muscle" from fasted training - your body has plenty of energy reserves.
Actually this brings up an exception to my "don't eat before a run" rule. If I am running longer than, say 11 or 12 miles, yea I am going to eat something "carby" pretty close to the run time if I am planning to run early in the morning before I have had a chance to fuel up for the day
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cwolfman13 wrote: »Sometimes I even have food during exercise...
To be fair, is it really "food" or is it some kind of gel or chew?
(Although I know plenty of cyclists who take real food like sandwiches along on their rides)
To answer the OP it kinda depends on my situation at the moment. I won't eat before a run or a swim if I can avoid it. Before a bike ride, sure as long as it is a steady-state endurance effort. Throw in intervals and anything in my stomach will be on the pavement. I generally try to make sure there is at least an hour or more between eating anything substantial and a hard workout.
Afterwards I try to eat a small snack right away with some protein, assuming I am not headed soon to a real meal.
However will it change how you lose weight? No not at all. It is all a matter of preference, and also your ability to be fueled for the workout.
Though I do sometimes take a Cliff Bar if I'm going to be out for awhile...there's a little pond in town that I like to stop at and watch the ducks and enjoy my Cliff Bar before continuing on...0 -
Beach body info that came with my P90 program says don't eat before because a lot of blood flow is diverted for digestion and I agree with not eating a large meal right before. Jillian Michaels says if you workout on an empty stomach then you will "cannabalize" muscle. I can see that too if you have no fat and no glycogen stores in the liver, but otherwise, I don't buy it. (As if anyone cares...just thought the contrasting opinions were interesting)0
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Beach body info that came with my P90 program says don't eat before because a lot of blood flow is diverted for digestion and I agree with not eating a large meal right before. Jillian Michaels says if you workout on an empty stomach then you will "cannabalize" muscle. I can see that too if you have no fat and no glycogen stores in the liver, but otherwise, I don't buy it. (As if anyone cares...just thought the contrasting opinions were interesting)
This doesn't happen.
The part about blood flow being directed to the digestive system is correct, but generally only matters if you have something "complicated" to digest like a bunch of protein or fat.
Simple sugars get digested and into the bloodstream pretty fast.
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I usually have to eat something light before if I haven't eaten in a few hours otherwise I get shaky. But it is all based on personal preference.0
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Beach body info that came with my P90 program says don't eat before because a lot of blood flow is diverted for digestion and I agree with not eating a large meal right before. Jillian Michaels says if you workout on an empty stomach then you will "cannabalize" muscle. I can see that too if you have no fat and no glycogen stores in the liver, but otherwise, I don't buy it. (As if anyone cares...just thought the contrasting opinions were interesting)
I manage to eat and cycle hard for many hours at a time (in fact you have to for long distance work, mostly carbs as @glevinso says).
Jillian Michaels clearly has never got to the state of complete glycogen depletion (bonking or hitting the wall) otherwise she wouldn't say such a silly thing. It's an appalling feeling of utter fatigue and mental confusion.0 -
Bonking... yea... the last time that happened to me, I stopped, got off my bike and sat down in the mud. My friends came up behind me and said I was babbling incoherently. Something about meeting the man with the hammer. They stuffed a few gels in me and made me ride slowly with them back to the car which was fortunately only 3 miles out at that point.0
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You won't "burn up your muscle" from fasted training - your body has plenty of energy reserves.
Actually this brings up an exception to my "don't eat before a run" rule. If I am running longer than, say 11 or 12 miles, yea I am going to eat something "carby" pretty close to the run time if I am planning to run early in the morning before I have had a chance to fuel up for the day
Ditto - for me (in performance terms) any intensity of training up to an hour is fine fasted, for a 2 hour ride I will have eaten "sometime" before but only drink water during the ride, over two hours hard training I will fuel up.0 -
Thanks for all the replies! Sounds like I can do what I want, then. My previous sources were Jillian Michaels (as htg20 mentioned) and The Fast Metabolism Diet, which both say not to workout fasted, but normally I prefer to do that.0
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I eat something small about 45-60 minutes before workout.0
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I usually eat something small before and after.0
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