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Does it make a difference to
A) Cardio Fitness
B) Muscle Growth
C) Weight Loss
i.e. If you exercise and then have lunch you will burn off the lunch calories more quickly?
Is there really any difference for A, B or C or is the net result the same regardless?
how about:
D) both
E) during
Those would be my picks.
Generally I believe it's more beneficial to exercise before a meal and especially before breakfast if you want to lose weight.
I also believe that to build muscle it's better to eat proteins within half an hour of finishing your exercise.
May be wrong though.
If you don't want to see your food again, then after strenuous exercise is better! Also, digesting food diverts blood flow from your muscles to your digestive organs, so performance is likely to be compromised - similarly, reason why you should eat/drink little and often to spread the physiological load and maintain blood sugar levels.
A Yum Yum about an hour before a swim is like rocket fuel!
There's loads of studies on this.
From my personal experience, I tried training fasted to drop some weight but hated it. I lacked the energy to train properly if I was hungry (and bonked hard more than once) so it didn't work for me.
For fitness and strength I'd avoid training hungry to ensure enough energy and try and get something in soon after to recover effectively.
Carbs and protein needs to be consumed fairly soon after training if muscle growth is a goal.
So essentially, eat. Just keep it healthy and train hard and you'll get the best balance of all 3.
Okay, I shall finish my McDonald's and head down the gym then
Fasted riding was very effective for dropping weight for me, but left me with hideous heartburn later in the day.
^^^ interesting. I've been upping my training recently and noticed I was getting heartburn later in the day when I particularly knackered myself in the morning. Wasn't aiming for fasted as such but to squeeze training in I have to be in the gym at 6 ish so haven't worried about eating beforehand.