eating before or after workouts?

mindy14456

I keep hearing that you should eat within 30 minutes of waking up. I workout at 5 am, so it is just jump out of bed, brush my teeth, hair in a ponytail and go! II don't have the time to eat first, so generally I don't eat until a couple of hours after I wake up . Is this a bad thing for my metabolism?

rileysowner

In my opinion all those eat within these number or minutes after whatever, are all bogus. No one has been able to show me any peer reviewed scientific studies to show any of it makes any difference. Do what works for you. If you want to try it and see if it works, go for it, but don't obsess over it. There is way too much that goes around as "you need to do this" that has no foundation at all in any evidence based research. This strikes me as one of them. Much like the eat 5 or 6 times a day for which there is no evidence it makes any difference at all in calorie burning. Eat less calories than you burn in a day and you will lose weight.

SHBoss1673

not necessarily. Depends on the type, length, and intensity of the workout. It also depends on when you last ate at night.

Generally, if you sleep 8 hours and don't eat for a couple hours before that, you'll have about 60 to 90 minutes of glycogen stores in your body if you do cardio at a moderate level. Obviously, the harder you work, the less time you have available.

Ideally, for long, moderate steady state cardio sessions, eating about 2 to 3 hours before and making it a carbohydrate heavy meal is ideal.

Alternatively, if you are doing heavy resistance, you want to eat a mixed protein/carbohydrate meal between 10 and 30 minutes after you work out. Note that you don't need a lot of food for this, 8 to 10 grams of protein is plenty, and 20 to 30 grams of carbs is all you need, I.E. somewhere between 125 and 200 calories. But this is arbitrary based on average workout times of about 30 to 45 minutes of heavy resistance. If you work longer than that, you'd want more. Please note that you don't need to gorge yourself on protein after a resistance workout, the body will just use extra protein as fuel anyway. A little bit goes a long way if you do it right.

kdiamond

I think it depends on the person...I do high intensity workouts (Crossfit) within an hour of waking and I made the mistake of eating before hand once, and it was a poor decision...lol...now all I do is drink a cup of coffee and sometimes a BCAA supplement 1/2 hour before and it never hinders my performance. I just make sure to eat a protein-heavy meal within 30 minutes after to preserve my muscle. I've been doing this for 5 months now with amazing results.

SHBoss1673

I think it depends on the person...I do high intensity workouts (Crossfit) within an hour of waking and I made the mistake of eating before hand once, and it was a poor decision...lol...now all I do is drink a cup of coffee and sometimes a BCAA supplement 1/2 hour before and it never hinders my performance. I just make sure to eat a protein-heavy meal within 30 minutes after to preserve my muscle. I've been doing this for 5 months now with amazing results.

yeah, you don't want to eat right before High intensity. That's not a pretty combination.

mindy14456

I think it depends on the person...I do high intensity workouts (Crossfit) within an hour of waking and I made the mistake of eating before hand once, and it was a poor decision...lol...now all I do is drink a cup of coffee and sometimes a BCAA supplement 1/2 hour before and it never hinders my performance. I just make sure to eat a protein-heavy meal within 30 minutes after to preserve my muscle. I've been doing this for 5 months now with amazing results.

I have been doing Turbo Fire, which is really high intensity cardio, generally an hour or so. And I do eat within 30 minutes after my workout. Thanks everyone, I am glad to know I am on the right path!! I was afraid I was getting less from my workouts