SHOULD YOU EAT BEFORE AND AFTER WORKING OUT TO BURN FAT?

BY: FITZ-GEORGE RATTRAY

There have been countless debates on this burning topic; what to eat before and after working out and whether or not it is important to do so. If you are currently trying to reduce your body fat, this might be a sensitive issue however this article might prove quite informative for those on this particular journey.

Let’s first highlight that everything discussed below is with the understanding that the absolute most important thing is to have a daily cycle of a clean, nutritionally balanced and largely natural eating pattern. Taking into consideration your health goals and activity levels, it is absolutely necessary to adjust your daily protein, micronutrients, carbohydrate, fats and caloric intake. 

DO I NEED SPECIAL PRE AND POST WORKOUT EATING?

The reality is, if you are not diabetic, hypoglycemic, or have other metabolism affecting conditions, a competitive athlete or are NOT at this moment trying to rapidly gain muscle, eating within an hour before exercising is not critically important.

The typical response is, “but I won’t have enough energy to workout effectively!” Human survival has proved otherwise. Outside of the past 200 years, or less, most of our ancestors didn’t have access to supermarkets, markets, shops or restaurants and such to pick up food at their leisure. In fact, many thousands of years before that the only option for most of our ancestors was to get up and hunt and/or gather. Bottom-line, they couldn’t reliably have a pre-hunt snack available to them, especially during times of famine and ice age conditions. We were gifted with the ability to perform without pre-activity eating.

 “But muscles run on carbohydrates!” Yes, muscles can run on carbohydrates and fats, including stored fats. With consistent conditioning your body can become fat adapted and utilize your fat stores for energy. This has been proven invaluable for fat loss and will turn your body into an active, endurance fat burning machine; not carb needy and insulin laden.Taking the time to condition yourself, improving slowly and steadily and being consistent for the rest of your life is infinitely more important than bursts of intensity. 

Joe Friel, a renowned health coach and author of the book Carb Back Loading, is now a strong advocate for fat adapted training. In short, fat adaptive training improves your physical performance by increasing the amount of fuel already stored in your muscles.

 “But I have to eat within 1 to 2 hours after working out. That is the optimal protein absorption window!

This is by no means accurate but rather a “bro science” fitness myth. Of course, if you are totally depleted, waking up after your night fast, working out, then starting your day without eating, will be a rough experience. However, with a normal balanced scheduled diet, you will not need to rush to catch any imagined optimal window.

There are a few conditions which require pre workout meals. These are:

• Performance athletes
• Persons with medical conditions such as diabetes and similar conditions
• Safely exercising in a fasted state
• And finally, if someone is trying to lose excess body fat,  is not a performance athlete but suffers from the all so common psychological, habitual and false deep beliefs mandating eating just before and after exercising; for such an individual, the mental block against the highly beneficial fasted training may result in under-training, unwillingness to workout, distraction and possibly injury.

To them I say, have a very light meal 1 to 1 ½ hours before working out, a fruit and an egg white or ½ to one serving of protein shake or bar. If this belief extends to post workout, a low sugar, low carb protein shake after working out will do. 

If you are on a wellness eating plan, such as The ITK Wave System, speak with your coach about rescheduling your meals to fit your workout times. This is not as simple as the pre and post workout myths will have us believe. The benefits of fasted workout is well researched. The fat loss benefits are game changing, but ultimately doing anything intelligently and consistently, is the best thing you can do for yourself. Just remember, to see a change, you must change.