Protein before exercise carbs after

Doesn't matter much. Meal timing doesn't affect weight loss, total calories are what matter. Meal timing does help with training though. Mainly you will be able to train with higher intensity if you're not training fasted.

Another thing to consider too is that almost all the time when someone makes an argument about fasted training or training without carbs they are making big assumptions based on what happens in a short window of time.

For example if you train completely fasted, acute fat oxidation goes up during the training bout. You burn more fat in that period of time. But it doesn't translate to greater whole body fat oxidation over longer periods of time largely because if you're holding calories constant and you're fasting until you train, you're just eating MORE calories after training compared to a situation where you eat some of those calories before training. (What I'm getting at is that if we hold calories constant all you're doing is moving them from before training to after training). And so when you train fasted you're increasing fat oxidation but then you're eating more after training and blunting fat oxidation and increasing fat storage.


And so basically it's a wash, for the most part. I just wanted to chime in with this additional info because that's the argument that's typically made by people who promote fasted cardio and it's likely a similar argument for avoiding carbs pre workout and only eating protein and it suffers from the same issues as the above.

Here's something relevant:
http://www.lookgreatnaked.com/articles/does_cardio_after_an_overnight_fast_maximize_fat_loss.pdf
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-014-0054-7

Carbs before protien after. When exercising the body will always choose carbs first as they are easier to break down. It can still use protien but is harder to break down. Plus when you are putting your body under stress why is the body going to make its own job hard

Protein before exercise helps prevent the body from using muscle tissue as energy. Generally I think the usual advice is to have some carbs, mostly but not all complex carbs, and some protein before exercise, and protein after. But as has been said, this does not affect weight loss. It just may help you see some performance gains -- I know I perform better when I've had lots of protein, some carbs and BCAAs. Carbs especially help with running performance. Oh, and pre-workout, can't forget that.

For most exercise routines timing and macro manipulation is of absolutely trivial importance - you have abundant glycogen and fat stores to fuel your exercise. It's very, very unlikely you are going to burn muscle for fuel and pre workouts aren't necessary.

Start exercising hard for 2+ hours then it's important, in which case you will be most likely be best served taking on carbs before (and maybe during) exercise.

best way to eat to get in good shape and lose fat.

IMHO a combination of a good strength resistance routine and cardio to "get in shape" and a sustainable and appropriate calorie deficit to lose fat.

I look at is fueling my body not only for the day, but tomorrow. I try to have carbs and protien with every meal.