Exercising Before or After You Eat
This is a response to an email I got from a friend through facebook. Christina recently went to the gym for the very first time earlier this week with my girlfriend Darlene. On Monday, they did a little fitness assessment and then did a short workout so that Christina could find dumbbell weights that were comfortable for her. She intends to purchase the dumbbells and continue her workouts at home.
Today she asked me about the timing of food and her workouts. She asks if she should eat before or after her workouts.
Great question.
It depends on what you want to accomplish. Exercise on an empty stomach is said to
burn more fat because you’re using fat rather than any glucose running through your veins.
Exercise in the morning, after fasting all night should burn more fat, or so they say.
Exercising directly after eating diverts blood from the stomach, required for digestion, to the muscles. Doing so results in an incomplete digestion process, so that’s not good either.
Exercising in the afternoon or evening would obviously require you to eat before hand, including as many as 2 or 3 meals already.
If you want to go heavy and hard in your workout, you should be having a pre-workout meal about 2 hours before you exercise. This is the one time starchy carbohydrates do you well. I prefer yam, sweet potato or brown rice at this meal, or if you're a Sunrider, a Sunbar (or two) and a Nuplus also provide the energy you're looking for, in an easily digestible format.
Eating after you exercise is also required to replenish the glycogen used during the workout. You should
eat within 20 minutes of a workout, to reduce catabolism. A piece of fruit or two should hold you off until you can get home to cook a full meal.
It really comes down to semantics I guess. What do you mean by eating before you exercise?
Here’s my approach.
I do my cardio followed by 20 minutes of interval training first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I start my day with a big mug of Sunrider Calli tea along with some stevia and head to the gym.
I eat my breakfast after my morning workout, then meals 2 and 3 following that.
It should be noted that I eat roughly every 3 hours, allowing for each meal to be completely digested before adding another one on top - a good principle for anyone to follow.
I then do my weight training in the afternoon or early evening and eat immediately following my workout. My post workout meal is an apple or two while in the locker room and on the way home, at which point I make a green smoothie using this recipe:
My Post Workout Shake
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
2 leaves Swiss chard (kale, spinach or any other dark leafy greens are good too)
1 good squirt of Sunrider Vitafruit
Sunrider stevia
Sunrider NuPlus (berry)
Then while I’m drinking this smoothie, I cook my post workout meal.
I am very conscious about the timing of my food and my workouts. As I eat every 3 hours, allowing for each meal to fully digest, I like to have my post workout meal at 3 hours past my previous meal. In so doing, my workout is about 2 hours after my previous meal.
Exercising 2 hours past my previous meal, or pre-workout meal, allows for it to digest and begin providing me the energy I need to train. I’ve been following this method since I began in 1992. I’m so picky about it in fact, that if I go more than 3.5 hours, I’ll eat again, instead of training – putting off my exercise for another 2 hours.
So to answer your question about eating before or after you exercise the answer is that both are important, but it depends on your situation and goals. I would not train immediately after eating, but rather allow for the meal to begin providing energy for the exercise, then eat immediately afterwards to replenish the glycogen stores used up during the workout.
Labels: exercise, Reader Questions
Why Have I Not Written A Book?
I got this question today from a subscriber to my weight loss and natural health newsletter
Q: Hi Rob,
a question has been bothering me about your site and newsletters, and i thought it best to go straight to the source.
Why have you not written a book, rather than give away this information for free?
Please don't take this the wrong way, Its just I'm hyper-sensitive to possible Snake Oil peddlers, and trust is a difficult issue for me.
Best wishes
Jim
A: Simple answer Jim. Fear.
It’s a tiny bit of fear and a big part of "who the hell would want to listen to me anyway" issue.
Just recently, and I mean just in the past week, have decided to do just that. Write my book. I've been talking about it for years and have never come through with the finished product. I’ve started it a few times and then just left it.
I've spent the better part of the past two years thinking each and every day about what I'd say, what's important to know about and in what sort of format I'd present the material.
Partly I'm a bit of a perfectionist, that the book has to be just right, in a format that I'd be happy to put my name behind, so that's been part of the delay.
Partly it's a bit of struggle about "the truth" of food, how the body works and busting through beliefs. There are a lot of big truths about food that people just don't want to hear.
Jim, I'm all about health as the primary focus to gaining your ultimate physique, not weight loss for the sake of weight loss.
Health is way more important.
By striving for health, constantly learning and applying the principles, we will gain our best looking body, along with some very positive side effects.
You see, I've been a student of health for many years. I'm a guy's guy so don't get me wrong, but some of the principles that I will suggest and promote aren’t in a typical "guy's" book.
However, I can't argue with results. What I'm about to describe in the book works.
I always seem to see new things, new principles that take me to the next level and then I delay the book some more while I experiment with the new thing. It's like the pieces have been coming to me year in, year out and I hadn't gotten a complete picture yet.
Am I using that as an excuse? Maybe.
The truth is though, that the book has to be written.
I know it's time and I believe that I'm finally ready
I have enough pieces to finally put it into words, which is exactly the next step.
Now comes the commitment part.
Can I commit to a date? That's a tough one.
I don't think I can. I don’t know how long it will take to put into words that which I want to say. I mean, "how long does it take to write a book?". I don't know. Depends on the book, the content and what flows out. When I'm flowing, other things may come up, extending it. I'm not sure I can commit to a date.
I will say this.
I have committed to writing the book, so it is coming out.
The book name is "Fat Loss Fundamentals"
The website will be www.fatlossfundamentals.com
I can give an approximate target date of June 1st 2008 for sure, but know that it will be out much earlier. How's that sound?
In the mean time Jim, I'd like to thank you for being a subscriber and trusting ME enough to ask the question. It makes me proud to know that you trust me enough over the people that I recommend. I thank you for that.
It's readers like you that ask me for my opinion, my help and tell me that you trust me that allow me to take the steps I need to take to write the book.
The people that I recommend on my website are the people that I know and that I trust. They’re either friends, people I know or products that I use myself.
I've been eating Sunrider foods for going on 17 years now and it will always be my primary source of nutrition.
Because of the ranking and traffic that my website gets, I am approached almost daily to promote the newest drug or the latest diet. When I turn them down, their immediate come back is "think about all the money though" to which I respond "it's not about the money, it's about trust".
I don't recommend things that I have not personally tried. I say this to the best of my knowledge and I can’t speak for the Google ads on my site.
Health and fitness are my passion Jim
I will make it my personal commitment to you to get this book out of my head, off the drawing board and into the hands of the many people who need it, now more than ever.
Thank you again for taking the time to write and thank you for being a subscriber.
Labels: Reader Questions, weight loss
Stupid Questions About Weight Loss
The only
stupid questions about weight loss are the ones that don't get asked. There are no stupid questions. I try and answer as many questions as possible with time permitting as I know that any question that gets asked is most likely a question that a lot of people want to ask but don't.
For example… you may be reading about weight loss and want to ask a question but don't take the time to post a comment or send an email. Trust me, if you think of the question, someone else has as well. Ask away. The question and the answer will help not only yourself, but many other readers as well.
My goal is to answer at least one question per week. I usually answer these questions on the weekends, but I don't limit it to that. However, as much as I want to take the weekends off, I usually find myself in front of my computer at some point and do answer them.
On my
former fat guy weight loss blog, I have an entire section dedicated to
reader questions. I also take questions from my
weight loss forum and answer them in the forum as well as in blog posts if I deem them appropriate.
I encourage you to post comments on the questions to facilitate discussion on the topic.
I recently added the dofollow plugin so, links WILL be followed. However, I am cautious about what I link to as well, so no spam sites. If your link is a spam site or something I just DO NOT agree with, I may not publish the comment.
A common question I do get is about loose skin. The past week alone, I was asked this question at least 3 times. I did answer the
question about loose skin here, but kept it vague for specific reasons. I've promised the readers an answer to that question in depth, but my "in depth answer" is a bit more in depth than I can do in a post. I am in the process of writing a special report on
loose skin after weight loss which I may very well create an entire website for. This is a very common question.
So to those who've asked, it's in the works. Just give me some time to come up with a full report about it, explaining the process step by step.
To fully answer each question, may take an hour or two of my time, so while I encourage the questions, they may be a bit delayed in answering.
The most recent question I answered was from Rachel who asked "
How To Deal With A Mental Blockage In Weight Loss?". Specifically, Rachel wanted to know "
How To Motivate Yourself To Go To The Gym?"
Thank you for your understanding.
Labels: Reader Questions, weight loss
Weight Training Program With A New Baby - Q and A
Q: Hi Rob,
I was wondering what your opinion on these are?
My wife's about to give birth to our first baby in a week or two & I'm sure I'm going to be limited time wise in the gym.
What would you recommend for a routine?
Thanks
Steve D.
A: Congratulations. I'm wondering what you mean exactly as I could take this to mean your training over the next few weeks, or your training after the baby arrives.
Either way, with limited time, I'd simply switch up the program to make it quick and heavy with lots of off days to recover and spend time with wife and baby.
Change is good. Changing your program every 6 weeks is a must. I answered another reader question about
How To Deal With A Mental Blockage In Weight Loss and recommended this very same thing called
Periodization.
After time, your muscles begin to adapt to the stress. Changing your program every 6 weeks keeps the body guessing as to what's happening next and it continues to adapt and grow.
A rest is also good, so in this case with limited time and a new baby, I'd reduce the amount of time in the gym as my method of change at this juncture.
You should not be training any longer than 1 hour at a time anyway. Research suggests that the optimal amount of time to train is actually 30 to 45 minutes, but certainly no longer than one hour. After the 1 hour mark, your hormonal state would be doing more damage than good. For more information about this, I invite you to sign up for my 5 part
How To Build Muscle E-Course.
So, what I suggest is to cut back to 30 minutes of training 3 or 4 times a week. Do one body part at a time, use compound exercises and super sets to maximize volume. Use heavier weights and lower reps (in the 6 to 8 range) and get out after 30 minutes regardless of whether or not you're finished your assigned exercises.
You go heavy, you focus on one body part, you maximize volume and then you go home. Wait 24 to 48 hours and then train again.
I don't know what your program looks like now, so this may be something totally new to you. Again, for more information on the logic behind this, go sign up for the
How To Build Muscle E-Course.
Work one body part every other day using this type of split:
1. Chest
2. Back
3. Shoulders - but a little lighter
4. Arms
5. Legs
(with a day of rest between each body part)
You work the entire body over 9 days and then have a day off before starting again. Shoulders get worked in any upper body exercises, so they're stimulated during Chest movements as well as Back movements. Train them just slightly lighter on their day so as to avert injury. Then you've got two more days of training of Arms and Legs before using your shoulders again on the Chest day.
As well, by giving yourself a day between, you're allowing much more time for recovery and the full use of all the Testosterone that occurs from the rebound affect after training. If you train every day, you will interrupt the Testosterone output by releasing more cortisol. Do NOT train every day. Allow for the rest.
I'll be writing more about
Hormonally Intelligent Exercise over the next few weeks, so make sure you subscribe to my blog posts for updates.
With the new baby coming, or when it arrives, you're going to have to optimize your sleep as well. Cutting back on training time and allowing for more rest between days, gives your body a chance to pump out lots of HGH, which improves sleep and stress levels. I get a kick out of supplement companies that offer HGH for you to buy when you can just have your body create it itself.. free (well, I guess you have to pay for it with a bit of pain).
What I'd like to impress upon you is to allow for the rest periods. If this type of program seems foreign to you, give it a try. Think of it as a "Training Holiday" if you will to at least get you to do it. You will probably find that you get better results than the current program you're following.
Good luck with the baby. Some pictures would be a nice follow up!
Labels: Reader Questions, training
