The many seemingly contradictory suggestions for how to eat before and after exercise make it tough to know what diet style is best to maximize loss of body fat. To further complicate things, there are two main exercise types, cardiovascular and resistance training, and each has its own unique focus and desired outcome. Opinions vary among experts even within one training type and desired outcome. Let's look at how to eat before and after each type of exercise specifically to maximize the loss of fat.
The best way to lose fat from light cardiovascular training is to eat a healthy diet daily, not eat before training, and not eat at all for an hour or more after training. The exercise uses glycogen stores in your muscles which your body then must replace. For maximum fat loss you are training your body to take that replacement fuel out of your stored fat. Eating or drinking carbohydrates particularly interferes with that process as the body then restores glycogen from the fuel you've just eaten instead. Try wait an hour or more post-exercise before you start your regular meal. Staying hydrated with water, or a low-carb electrolyte replenishment drink if needed, is always a good idea during and after exercise.
Heavy cardio exercise of an hour and a half or more, like marathon running and bicycle racing, changes your eating requirements a bit. Many trainers recommend days of carb loading before a big race, but that is specifically to increase your speed and energy during the race, not to lose fat. The Mayo Clinic, for example, warns that this type of carb loading may cause weight gain, but mostly as water gain. Still, above a healthy daily diet with very good protein amounts, there is no specific need for special pre-workout eating to maximize fat loss. Post-workout it may be wise to use high quality protein, such as whey or egg, with low carbs in the 15 to 30 minute window immediately after exercising to smooth out muscle rebuilding, yet still make the body replenish glycogen stores from stored fat.
When you add a fat loss as a priority to long hard cardio workouts the picture changes. Better than carb loading before the workout is simply eating a good diet with plenty of protein, and no extra pre-workout carb or protein loading. It is possible that you won't have as much energy during your training, and your time may slow down a bit, but you will be requiring the body to convert those fat stores, and to become very efficient at it. Post-exercise the same highly digestible protein with very low carbs is still a great idea, especially within the 'refueling window' which is open for close to 30 minutes after your training.
The best choice for carb-loading during heavy racing is to achieve a middle ground. Train for races without adding extra carbs to your diet. This conditions your body to use those fat stores instead of depending on easy carb intake. But for actual races, use some carb supplementation so you aren't too fatigued to continue. And make sure to drink plenty of liquids, get your electrolytes and have a good daily protein intake.
When you are doing resistance training, you will be focusing even more on getting good amounts of protein in your regular daily diet, about.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of ideal body weight. You won't need special pre-exercise food, but you may want to get in your good, digestible protein in the 30 minutes post-exercise. The post-exercise protein is good to help decrease the muscular discomfort and increase ease of muscular tissue recovery, but is not mandatory.
With a fat loss target, it is best to hold off for quite a while after your workout, an hour or more, before eating any carbs. Going right into your next regular meal after an hour or two will be fine. This again trains the body to replace muscular glycogen stores out your deposited fat cells. To lose fat, skip pre-training and post-training carbs as much as you can. Still consider taking in some good digestible protein in the 30 minute refueling window.
Here is what we know about eating pre- and post-exercise:
- Eat a good diet daily with plenty of protein
- For Fat Loss, avoid carbohydrates before and after exercising, which trains the body to use your fat stores for energy
- Carbohydrates pre-, post- and during a workout may be needed to prevent energy drop only during competitive, 90 plus minute events
- Some easily digestible protein in the 'refueling window' for the first 30 minutes after exercise will help with deep tissue muscular recovery if the muscles have been seriously stressed
So eat judiciously in conjunction with your exercise to really speed your fat loss, and enjoy your new slim ready-for-anything body.
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