Man, I miss Calvin!
Burping noxious flavors is my primary concern when deciding what to eat pre-workout. Especially now that I have a couple of friends that I go running with a few mornings a week (friends! yay!!). We go early early to avoid both our kids and the hot sun and so this idea of what to eat before I go out has been on my mind a lot. I know some athletes carb-load while others swear by fasted-state cardio and still others strive for a balanced meal 1-3 hours before getting their sweat on. And let’s not forget the smoothie/shake contingent! ( The difference between a workout smoothie and a shake? Nothing except that women drink the former and men drink the latter.) But honestly who cares about blood glucose levels if I’m regurgitating sausage and peppers between sets? Therefore my pre-workout meals are generally pretty bland. Oh and I learned to avoid soy products the hard way when my gaseous emissions nearly asphyxiated an entire TurboKick class. (Yes, 5 years later and I’m still apologizing for that one.)
The issue of what to eat to best fuel your workout reminded me of an interesting interview from a couple of years ago with Kiefer John called “Females, Fat Loss and Performance“. The gist of the article is that the differences between the male and female body require different programs. He says, “Most of the recommendations women read in mainstream media are actually recommendations for male athletes that are blindly carried over and applied to women. That’s a huge problem.” Right off the bat, I love his premise. I’ve long wondered why men and women are treated exactly the same in the fitness literature when our differing hormonal profiles mandate that we respond differently to physiological stimuli. His main two points of difference are that women shouldn’t eat carbs because we burn proportionately more fat than men and that we should do less cardio if we want to be lean. His science was a little sketchy but I know a lot of people that wouldn’t argue with his conclusions.
In regards to the first point he writes, “ The hormonal situations occurring when you first wake up creates an optimal environment for fat burning, the moment that you eat carbs this environment is ruined. That’s why I always tell everyone, ‘as soon as you get up, bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs’.
This idea that the body awakes from its overnight fast in a state particularly attuned to burn fat has been around for a long time. But is it true? According to one of my all-time fave fitness writers Tom Venuto (and the first one I ever fell in exercise-love with – his book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle was my very first Great Fitness Experiment ever!), some research supports this theory.
“1. When you wake up in the morning after an overnight 8-12 hour fast, your body’s stores of glycogen are somewhat depleted. Doing cardio in this state causes your body to mobilize more fat because of the unavailability of glycogen.
2. Eating causes a release of insulin. Insulin interferes with the mobilization of body fat. Less insulin is present in the morning; therefore, more body fat is burned when cardio is done in the morning.
3. There is less carbohydrate (glucose) “floating around” in the bloodstream when you wake up after an overnight fast. With less glucose available, you will burn more fat.
4. If you eat immediately before a workout, you have to burn off what you just ate first before tapping into stored body fat (and insulin is elevated after a meal.)
The real question however is if this makes any difference to fat loss or performance. Venuto quotes Lyle McDonald, an expert on bodybuilding nutrition and author of The Ketogenic Diet.
“All that research says is that you burn a greater proportion of fat this way, which I agree with 100%,” says Lyle. “The majority of research shows that as far as real world fat loss goes, it doesn’t really matter what you burn. Rather, 24-hour calorie balance is what matters. Because if you burn glucose during exercise, you tend to burn more fat the rest of the day. If you burn fat during exercise, you burn more glucose during the day. The end result is identical.”
The second key difference between men and women athletes says Kiefer is,
“For women in particular, one 45 minute bout of cardiovascular exercise at a heart rate above 65% will shut down the major metabolic regulator, T3 [Thyroid hormone] for about a week. So one day of over doing it, and you’ve shut down your metabolism for a week. This is unique to females. That’s a huge misconception, ‘if I need to lose weight, I need to run more, or be on the bike more, or get more cardio’; for women, it’s the opposite. This will make it much, much, harder.”
From my personal experience I would say his second point is right on the money – hello Rachel Cosgrove Experiment and the best results the Gym Buddies and I ever got! – but I’m still not sure about his first one.
In my years as a fitness nut – emphasis on the nut – I have tried everything when it comes to meal and workout timing. I did the only-fruit-for-brekkie thing courtesy of the Skinny Bitches (the book, I’m not calling anyone that) which ended with me leaving class so light headed and nauseous that when I sat down next to an old man he asked me if I was pregnant. (Which is exactly what a girl working out wants to hear…) For a couple of years fasted-state worked great for me but that was because I worked out at 5 a.m. (I miss you L!) and my stomach definitely did not want food that early. When I went through my carb-fearing phase, I loaded up on eggs and spinach which wasn’t bad but I felt like I was lacking some spring in my step. And then there was the 5 straight years of some kind of oatmeal concoction every morning – not bad with a chopped apple and walnuts, gag-worthy with a whole scoop of protein powder, most creatively done as an egg custard.
These days however it’s anything goes. That’s the beauty of Intuitive Eating – I eat what I feel like. Yesterday I had eggs scrambled with salmon and veggies (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!). The day before it was an apple. This morning it was German pancakes, whipped cream, berries, a fried egg, two strips of (pastured, all beef, nitrate-free) bacon and half a pound of asparagus. What? I was hungry! Like many other things in my life, I find that my pre-workout nutrition is best when I just go with what I feel like that day. But maybe what makes me happy isn’t best for my body? Why does research always generate more questions than it answers??
What’s your pre-workout eating philosophy? What do you think about women needing less carbs and less cardio than men because of our physiology? Anyone else burp up nasty stuff during a workout??
That thing about T3? I wish I’d known that when I was first diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Maybe I wouldn’t have turned to long distance running in the following years to “keep my metabolism going”. Yeah, that worked well. Not. (It’s a shame, I like running, not least because it’s free and I really hate coming up with at-home-body-weight stuff as a permanent gym replacement.)
I’ve mostly given up planning what to eat before a workout. My only rule is this: if there are other people involved, stay off the chickpeas, cabbage and dried fruit. (And no, I don’t usually mix the three, although that would be…interesting. 😉
My body seems to want to cycle every couple of months. First I don’t want anything at all when I wake up, then I just want eggs, then I want a full 7-course meal. For the past couple of months, I’ve been having bacon and eggs and a mango. Like you, I eat what I want.
I have found over the years through trial and error what I can/cannot eat. No bananas, pineapple, or peanut butter pre-workout. All three will sit too heavy on my stomach and cause awful burping. My early morning pre-breakfast usually consists of coffee with skim milk and almond butter on whole wheat bread. After the workout, I come home and have real breakfast.
I don’t work out in the early morning. Ever. But whatever time I do work out, I need to eat within a couple hours before and I need carbs. Many of my PRs have been fueled by a Dunkin Donuts coffee and bagel on the way to the gym. (Maybe they want to sponsor me? Nah, maybe not.)
I think every woman who has her first baby boy should receive a copy of a Calvin and Hobbes book so she will understand her little boy’s way of thinking!
Yes! 🙂
I’ve been following the idea of protein over carbs first thing and really felt like that has made a difference in my body. I don’t worry too much about total carbs the rest of the day…but yes I also think I’d probably be closer to my “ideal” body if I weren’t marathon training…not willing to give it up though 🙂
When I did AM workouts I never ate before. My stomach hates food until I’ve been up about 5 hours, although the workouts did seem to speed that along and I could generally eat right afterwards. People think I’m crazy for the 5 hour thing but throwing up in the bushes of my high school cured me of trying to eat breakfast. These days I workout in the evenings and generally I want carbs in the afternoon so I’ll have a carb heavy snack about an hour before. The plus is that it’s normally bland enough to not trigger any burps. But if I eat too close I get terrible side cramps. Hate those!
I do try to balance my intense cardio (HIIT, Turbokick) with weight sessions but I think a small amount is good for you. And honestly, I think cardio is way more fun than weight training.
If I swim laps on an empty stomach, I get a migraine, so not eating something isn’t an option for me. I usually eat half a Lara Bar as I drive to the pool. That gives me around 100 calories, which seems to be enough for whatever it is that causes the migraines – low blood sugar, I suppose. It’s kind of high on the carbs (the bars use dates as a base), but it’s one of the more higher-carb things I eat in a day.
And I don’t know if it’s a woman/man thing, but I definitely operate and feel better when I keep my carbs on the low side. This is timely, since I just wrote a blog about Monday morning’s carb hangover!
Somehow it bugs me that it’s assumed that we exercise to burn fat.
I exercise because it’s fun. I run long distance runs to air my brain. I exercise to be fit, being fit enables me to do more things that are fun (rock climbing, via ferrata, alpine hikes….).
I exercise to show myself that I can do it. To set goals and to reach them.
It bugs the bloody hell out of me. As I have stated before exericising to burn fat makes no more sense than driving a car to burn gas. You burn gas to drive your car and burn fat to drive your body. Inverting the equation is an eating disorder.
Stated more formally than you have, I exercise to stimulate an adaptive response to the stress. When you see me riding my bicycle odds are I am not exercising at all. I’m probably just putting that adaptive response to use in getting from one place to another and I am obliged to burn fat in order to do it.
I’m probably also having fun. 🙂
I’ve never been persuaded to eat breakfast. Until I’ve been up and moving for a few hours the idea of food is just… deeply unappealing. I do tend to have a late dinner and a bedtime snack, though, so maybe that’s why I don’t need to eat again first thing in the morning.
Right now I’m just trying to transition my family to a GF/CF diet, and to get as much nutrition in them as possible. I’ve also been starting my day with homemade juice, than having breakfast an hour or so later. Since I usually workout in the evening, it would probably be a bad idea not to eat at all beforehand, lol!
As for all the sciency-wiency stuff, well, I’ll just quote Elton John: “All the science, I don’t understand.”
Charlotte, it seems to me you’re doing exactly as you need to. And it’s so great you have running buddies!!!!!!!
If I’m working out first thing in the morning (as I prefer to do), I usually do it fasted. It’s just easier that way! And it seems just fine.
I have tried consuming breakfast for an extra boost of energy before my morning workouts but it always slows me down and gives me stomach pains. I recently noticed I am getting leaner ever since I scheduled my workouts in the early morning but the most important thing is that I have so much energy throughout the day and I’m happy. Everyone at work notices that I look better and seem happier when I come to work right after my morning workout, so I will continue until I find a better system.
Wonderful blog & good post.Its really helpful for me.
If I do fasted cardio first thing, I make sure to drink 5-10 grams of BCAA’s to preserve my hard-earned muscle.
Wow! I am pretty much dumbfounded by that fact! I always thought cardio was the key to fat loss and that more is better! And as for carbs, I am at a loss! I went through a carb-fearing period, now I am going through a vegetarian period with more carbs (mostly from fruits)… So how much is the “right amount” of cardio and carbs??
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