What to Eat before Heading to the Gym!

Sometimes what you don’t eat is also important, I was on a intermittent fasting routine for a long time – I had some of the best workouts I have ever had fasted. Three reasons why I think this was the case:

1) Increased drive and фокус I have while on the fast – for me my workouts go like my mind goes, if I am not focused I don’t do very well./> 2) It may have also been because I had freed up the typical energy used for digestion to be used for the workout, I think we sometimes underplay how much energy is required to digest food./> 3) Energy systems are already primed with fat metabolism, your body is producing more than normal enzymes to break down fat and utilize it. Typically if you have eaten you are going to run on whatever carbs are in the system and then at some point make a shift to fat. It all depends on what your workout intensity level is as well.

It should be noted my workouts are usually under 1hr, although in the past I have done 2.5hrs of martial arts training – including things such as grappling or sparring – fasted with no issues.

A lot of people say they are shaky or tired if they don’t eat, but I wonder if that is more mental since we are so programmed by the media, food industry, and the like to need to eat every few hours. I have seen friends unknowingly going for long periods of time without eating with no complaints, but if they are aware that they have not eaten in a while they claim they start to feel hypoglycemic.

I actually did one of the most taxing things in my life on a 18hr fast – it was testing for my provisional black belt. I had to spar a new black belt every 2 minutes for 30 minutes with no break other then the brief moments to switch to a new person. We then got a few minutes of rest and repeated this scenario two more times. I got winded, I got tired, but I never felt like I was “done” and I was still (trying) to blitz the other black belts on my last round. In fact I felt I could have went on much longer while most others who had eaten were worn out by the end of the second round.

One more thing, don’t get me wrong here, if you workout fasted your post workout nutrition is vital, you do need to eat after working out to get the best results, but you especially need too after a fasted workout because you have most likely depleted your glycogen levels. That was the hardest part of intermittent fasting for me – trying to time my fast end with my workouts.