Help or Hurt

rickyrozay2414

Hello team

I only eat between 12pm to 8pm but I workout early mornings am I helping or hurting by not consuming anything but water until 12pm?

pinuplove

Meal timing is a matter of preference. A restricted eating window is one tool some people find helpful in maintaining a calorie deficit. If you're happy with it, no reason to stop. If, however, you feel your performance is suffering or you dislike waiting until noon to eat, there's no reason you have to continue. Sustainability is key.

rickyrozay2414

Thanks

MikePTY

As long as you are properly fueling your body during your eating window, you should have enough gylocgen to power your workouts while fasted in the morning.

88olds

Unknown. What’s it like for you? I used to lose my mind working out on an empty stomach.

lorrpb

There is no scientific reason to do this but if you feel ok, you’re probably ok. If you feel weak, dizzy, lethargic, etc then you should consider modifying. Especially if you have hard workouts.

J_Fabulous

If I don't eat a bite of something before I workout I start having dry hes and getting extremely sick to my stomach and throw up bile. So I have gotten into the habit of eating a quest bar before my workout, alternatively my trainer says I could also eat a tablespoon of peanut butter. You just need a little bit of energy to get you through the workout. You might want to try it to see if your workouts get better.

amusedmonkey

You're helping if this makes working towards your goals easier, it's hurting if it makes it harder. There is no one specific answer to this question because someone may feel less hungry eating that way, and someone else may feel more hungry.

Jasperlicious

Time-restricted eating is getting a lot of attention as of late. By allowing your body to enter a fasted state you are more likely to deplete any circulating sugar in the blood, the body then resorts to stored glycogen in the liver, once this is depleted you are more likely to enter a state of ketosis, which is a body process which relies on the breakdown of fat (lipolysis) for energy. Lipolysis is the breakdown of lipids (fat molecules) into glycerol and fatty acids components. Ketosis is the breakdown of those fatty acids into ketone bodies, which the body utilizes in place of sugar...

This is a long way of saying that fasting (such as time-restricted eating) results in the utilization of stored fat for energy. The body becomes more adept at entering into ketosis if you eat a diet that is low in carbohydrates and high in "good" fats. A lot of athletes are practicing intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets for more sustainable energy and to reduce body fat. It's incredibly interesting and there is a lot of research out there to support these theories.

I highly recommend researching the following: fasting, intermittent fasting, ketogenic dieting, and autophagy for the multitude of data supporting how this can be a healthy way of not only losing weight, but also of preventing cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and many other chronic diseases. Autophagy, for example, is a process of 'self-eating' literally. Where the body recycles old dying cells when faced by a shortage of incoming nutrients (ingesting food). The discovery of this process won the Noble Prize in 2016! The potential to prevent many disease processes requires the bodies natural autophagy process to remove and recycle damaged cells. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5240711/

I've gone on a bit of a tangent, my point is that I do think that time-restricted eating can be very beneficial to your fitness and health. Consider looking into Jason Fung's 'Obesity Code' for a great read! Or watch some youtube videos for a simplistic view of fasting. Hope that helps

Here's a simple video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlojGmbl4J4.

amusedmonkey

No wonder people are afraid of carbs and normal meal timing... there is just so much over-sensationalized media about it.