Help or Hurt

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

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.

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.