I know J. Berardi reccomends eating a high protein/fat meal before training, as do many others. However, I find I just have no energy to train at all, even if I ate carbs in my earlier meals. Any ideas why this would be? Is it a big disadvantage to eat carbs pre-workout? Also, do you plan to post a “Don’t Diet” article any time soon?
id like to see this answered!
I find that I’m just the opposite. I bonk if I eat too much carbs before a workout. It also sometimes happens if it has been too long since a carb meals too, though. I tried doing what JMB does, eat a protein meal then sip a diluted solution of gatorade. This worked pretty well.
The idea of not eating carbs until after my workouts make sense. However, I’m wondering about the Gatorade thing. This may be a stupid question, but what is so special about gatorade? Can I just use a regular sugar drink, like those cheapo drink crystals you can buy?
Poliquin’s “Preparing For The Ultimate Workout” has worked great for me. He allows for some low-glycemic carbs (orange, spelt bread, etc) in those who tolerate them well.
Unfortunately, I am one of those easy_fat_gaining bastards who have a problem with carbs. I do best on isocaloric nutrition and ketogenic diets. Also, I prefer a small protein-fats meal prior to workout, somewhere in range of 500 kCal, up to an hour before the workout. Carbs make me crash badly.
You shouldnt have a carb meal before training (unless it’s over 2 hours before) because the insulin release will cause carbs to be shuttled into the cells and out of the blood. This will lead you to start the workout with lower blood glucose and you just wont feel right because blood glucose has an effect on perception of effort (via central mechanisms - i.e. the brain and nervous system). In addition fat mobilization is slowed with high insulin in the blood. So that’s why you shouldnt do high carb before training. The next thing to consider is that ONLY carbs are burned during wt training (or at least most of the energy for the “work” portion comes from carbs - the rest between sets portion is a combo of carbs and fat). So you want enough carbs around to fuel the contractions but you dont want the crash I discussed above. The solution…get some fat and protein in about 1 to 1.5 hours before training. This will give you p and f and cals for training, will prevent the insulin spike, and will stick around for a while so that you dont get hungry during training. Then sip on a dilute carb drink during training. At this point (during training only) the insulin response is minimal and therefore the carbs wont cause you to crash. I go with about 30-40g of carbs in 1000ml water. I use gatorade cause it tastes good (esp since I put 1 serving of powerdrive in there) and cause it has a nice electrolyte blend. This drink is nice because it also forces you to drink alot of water during training also (which most dont do). Just dont drink fructose because it will give you gas. Since sucrose is a glucose+fructose, your ideal drink would not be just any old sugary drink. It would be a glucose or glucose and maltodextrin drink. Then after training go with the PW drink Ive talked about several thousand times.