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Old Wed, Apr-19-06, 16:03
Davideb Davideb is offline
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Plan: high fat BFL
Stats: 170/170/170 Male 1.80
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sunshine2
would you have carbs in the preworkout meal? the Book says to workout on empty stomach but I've heard to have meal before workout too, so I don't know what is right.


I would probably opt for a balance of carb and protein in the preworkout meal and very very very few fat.
I want to make sure my body doesn't turn to my muscles to get the energy required for lifting the weights. One would think that's a not a problem since the body has so much fat to burn to get energy, but lyposis is not an effective energy pathway during weight lifting because it's too slow, ketones are even worse. The truth is that weight lifting is not a fat burning activity especially during exercise while may somewhat contribute to fat burning after exercise at rest. During weight lifting the body will always prefer protein to fats in absence of carbohydrates and when the body chooses to use mainly amino acids as its energy source it doesn't matter if we've eaten 400 grams of protein it will catabolize muscles.
I think that weight lifting should be done on the morning/afternoon when the body is an anabolic phase and not on evening/night.
Being morning/afternoong more carbs can be consumed and they would not affect blood sugar and fat burning as they would if consumed at night.
If more carbs are consumed for breakfast that would be even better as the body is more glucose tolerant after a night fast.

High-carb pre workout meal consumed 1 or 2 hours before weight training is known to increase the synthesis of muscle while high-GI foods consumed with protein 30-45 mins after workout are known to replenish faster muscle glycocen and to increase protein absorption.
I would even say that pre and post workout meals make carbs essential to thrive.

Pre and post workout meals are also metabolically the best time to eat carbs without consequences including no sugar spikes or hypoglycemia. I remember a study for example when they showed how the difference between the people who can tolerate more carb (diabetics and non) and those who can't tolerate much carb (diabetics and non) was in their activity level. Very active person could consume carbs as a fuel for their activity and the body didn't got adverse effects to it their body was very glucose tolerant. On the other hand sedentary people who eat more carbs are fueling with carbs a body who is glucose intolerant as long as the need for carb-fuel doesn't create a tolerance. It's exactly like a theather who can't admit any more viewers as long as the theater is full.

That being said I believe that the best solution is fruit and oat.
Pre-workout meal and post-workout meal are the perfect meals were to consume high-sugar fruit without any kind of adverse effect even if you have sugar metabolism problems.
For example a smoothie with milk, half a banana, oats and protein power
would be a good pre-workout meal for the following reasons:
The fruit sugar will fuel the workout in the first part while low-GI starches are still digesting while the oats carbs who are absorbed slower would fuel the last part of the workout when the banana sugars has already been used

Another reason to limit fats in your pre-workout meal is that they are digested more slowly than carbs and you may end up lifting weight with a stone in your stomach wich will decrease your potential or cause indigestion or worse.
Fat in the pre-workout meal should be left to a minimum a couple of grams or less. That applies to post-workout meal too where fat would delay the absoption of carbohydrates or protein to when the body is not anymore in that phase when the glucogeunetic enzymes are tripled and ready to replenish glycogen stores and when protein absoption is a its highest.

Of course, that's only for weight lifting days. You don't need a pre-workout meal for cardio and doing cardio on an empty stomach may indeed increase fat burning.

my humble 2 cents

D.
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