SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to 925 Wellness Podcast. We are live on LinkedIn and Instagram. And thanks for joining us. If you’re joining us live and if you are listening to the recording, thanks for joining us that way too. Today I we are going to talk about a topic that I get a lot of questions about, and that is fasted workouts versus fed workouts. Fasted versus fed means are you eating before your workouts or are you supposed to eat with before your workouts? And or you should be going without eating anything, especially if you’re an early morning workout person, like who wakes up and then first thing you do is work out. And this is a question I feel like at least I get it 10 times a week from my patients too, because they’re confused. So that’s what we were going to explore today. And I have an awesome trainer with me today who’s going to help us understand what are the pros and cons of both, when to do a certain type of workout, and when not to what to eat. If we are talking about eating, you’re also going to talk about nutrient timing in and around your meals, in and around or meals in and around your workouts. So we are going to get started with that. Coach Brian, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

So good, Aisha. Thanks so much for having me again. And we’re going to drop lots of knowledge bombs, just like we did the last time. So pull out a paper pencil. You’re ready to take some notes because I too get this so much when you said, hey, let’s talk about this. Like totally. So because guys are always asking, I wake up early and I work out, or it’s in the later in the day. What should I do? And this will help us really just cut through it all.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. And welcome to the podcast. As always, it’s a pleasure talking to you. And I’ve been really enjoying our conversations. And so has our audience because I’ve gotten a lot of DMs and comments on our posts. So let’s talk about fasted workout first. What is a fasted workout?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, a fasted workout usually means that you’re doing a workout probably in the morning, usually before work. For some people, it’s gonna be even as say 4 a.m., the super duper early risers, but more like five, six, seven-ish. And then for people who sleep in and then get up, it’s more like eight or nine or ten. It just depends on that normal schedule. But the thing is you haven’t eaten since dinner. You then get up and go straight to the gym or go straight into activity. And it’s always gonna happen between the four-year first meal, or most people refer to that as breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Absolutely. So yeah, if you haven’t broken your fast, that’s exactly what I’d mean. That you if and you’re gonna go and go ahead and hit the gym or your weight room, guess what? That’s a fasted workout. So exercising on an empty stomach, usually first thing in the morning, or after 10 to 12 hours of going without any food, is what a fasted workout is. Okay, what are the benefits of doing a fasted workout?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, number one, I always uh ask people a simple question, how quantify should they do a fasted workout or not? Do I need energy for the workout? There it is, plain and simple. And that will help you determine if it’s relevant to go in fasted or not. Secondly, we have to think about digestion. For me, I can eat dinner and go for a 10-mile run. I’ve just, I don’t know, train myself, I can tolerate that or whatever. And other people are like, it’s not gonna happen, right? But I’m not gonna do wind sprints or hill repeats or something on a full stomach either. That that won’t go well for me. But what when we so those are the two main things that we need to understand. And when when it comes to burning fat, that’s a priority when you do exercise. And doing it in a fasted state can actually give you a subtle but not necessarily inconclusive reason to always do it. Studies from Schoenfeld, he’s a a monster in the exercise science space. In 2014, the Journal of International Society Sports Nutrition, he did a four-week trial matching calories between a fasted group and a Fed group. That loss was about 2.4 pounds in that four-week trial, fasted, no food, versus 1.5 pounds in the Fed. So less than one pound difference, which is negligible in the bigger picture. So I think it really has to come down to the person and their digestion and how hard the workout’s gonna be to determine the right approach for that, or how early in the morning it is, or even another question for me is like, when did you eat last? So I purposely ate right before I went to bed last night because I knew I was gonna get up and run five miles. So then I was already carb loading for the morning, so I didn’t have to get up and eat.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

So absolutely. So yeah, that’s totally correct. And I want to add on to it that fasted workouts to some extent, what research has shown, and thanks for sharing that research study, which showed that on average people lost 2.4 pounds more than people who did not do fasted workouts. So fasted workouts force your muscles to burn more stored fat for energy. And then another thing they’re good at is it helps your body switch between burning glucose and fat. So we call that metabolic flexibility. So if fasted workouts are good at one thing, they are definitely good at this. Where if you haven’t eaten in the last 10 to 12 hours and you go and do a workout, we’re gonna talk about intensity in a second, but you go and do a workout, your body starts with burning glucose, but then very quickly switches back to fat because that is what’s readily available. You don’t have a lot of glucose stored at that time because you’re in a fasted state. Or we call it, as we all know, the keto diet. That’s what the diet is. That’s ketosis. Your body is in ketosis at that time. That means that it’s ready to break and burn fat molecules versus glucose molecules in your bloodstream and your body. So that’s where it’s good at.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

I’ll also throw in where it’s really good at, especially I think it depends on where you’re at on the spectrum of performance versus I need to lose weight or be healthy, or I just like moving my body and going to the gym as part of my health routine. That’d be the other side of the spectrum there from one to the other. And if we are in that, I need to get healthier, fasting can build better blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity over time. So if you’re struggling with diabetes, type one, two, or even three with insulin resistance or prediabetes, it might be a good idea. Or if you’re challenged with cholesterol issues, going in with a fasted state can help to start to repair these problems. Because unfortunately, you have a lot of energy storage on your body that you’ve been saving up for a long time, and that is stored body fat.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yes, absolutely. So that adibose tissue that Brian is talking about, which is stored body fat, and you also have fat molecules, which we call lipids, actually in your bloodstream. So when you do a fasted workout, you are burning those lipid molecules, like you’re breaking down those lipid molecules in your bloodstream. And so when you go and do your annual blood test, you know how your physician says, Oh, guess what? Your LDL is really high. And that also means your lipids are real high and you have high cholesterol, you might consider statin. So this is your natural body’s way of breaking down lipids. So that’s, I call it a natural statin. Okay. Now let’s talk about intensity a little bit. Now, as far as intensity goes, we prefer a low to moderate intensity workout if you are in a fasted state. Yeah. But that also could include weight training. I think where fasted workouts shine are weight training at a moderate to low intensity. Agreed. Because you’re using that anaerobic system of your body still, but you’re also building that endurance to use fat as a fuel. So that’s where fasted workouts, I think, in my belief, the really shine. Try to stay away from high-intensity workout, like HIIT training. I wouldn’t recommend somebody to anybody to do it on a fat in a fasted state. So, and if you are doing, let’s say, two, you’re hitting two muscle groups, let’s say chest and legs or squats, you’re doing, and you do four to five sets at a moderate intensity or weight and do you’re gonna be fine. You’re not gonna feel like exhausted and fatigued. You’re actually burn breaking down those lipid molecules and that uh at that point, and you’re gonna gain a lot of muscle mass. Why? Because fasted workouts not only boost that muscular strength endurance that we are talking about here, it’s also great at increasing human growth hormone. So HGH, which a lot of people want to inject and or supplement with. So if if you’re serious about gaining some muscle mass, two or three days a week, do your strength training session in a fasted state at moderate to lower intensity weights. Now, what am I talking about? I’m talking about between 60% to 75% of your one rep max. That’s what moderate intensity is, like low moderate intensity is. So that’s where I think fasted workouts are super great. And or like for ultrarunners, I always have to come down to running because I love running so much. So if you are someone who uh trains for volume as far as far as any of the cardio activities concerned, we’re talking about super slow, long runs of six to ten miles. Same for the bike. You can translate that distance to biking and or swimming as well. So as long as you’re in an aerobic state or mildly aerobic state, fasted workouts are good for you. Now I want to talk about cons, and I’m gonna give you the stage, Brian. What are the where do the fasted workouts don’t work that well? Why not?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

100% agreement in everything you said. And it even just goes back to a simple question: do I need energy for this workout or not? Basic strength training, walking, light running, jogging type of aerobics. Easy. Yeah, you don’t really need them because we’re not gonna fall at risk of having low blood sugar levels because you’re just burning at a high rev in a sense. And you we definitely don’t want to have dizziness, shakiness, a lot of fatigue mid-set, and you just completely your motivation crashes, your pump in the gym, you’re trying to go for it, just totally deflates on you. We don’t want any of that. Now, the flip side, let’s go to more say endurance running or crossfit. We both enjoy CrossFit. That’s a high rev, both of them are. And in that situation, Sport Nutrition 101 says fuel your workouts before, even during and after. So when the intensity goes up, we’re at a it’s like even driving your car at 10 to 30 miles per hour. We’re not really going that fast, but when we’re going over 60, we’re consuming a lot of gas. And basic just physiology, you have to replenish that that fuel source, or you will bunk in your workouts, in your run. And again, that is just a very deflating feeling when that happens and your motivation goes away and quickly, and willpower to push through it is non-existent. So that that’s going to be the flip side of this coin here. And usually it can vary depending on intensity. 100 is a lower calorie snack to even 400 calories even per hour, depending on the rate and length and intensity that you’re going.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Absolutely. Thanks for highlighting the cons of fastered workouts. And I’ve come across many athletes myself. Like they would come first thing in the morning. When I used to train track athletes, they were not knowing what to do. And they’re like, we eat something, we are gonna feel sick. And here we are. I’m putting them on 400 meter repeats 10 times around. And oh yeah, that’s burn them. You’re dizzy. They’re like, oh no, we don’t feel good, can’t push any more coach, we are feeling lightheaded. Duh, you should have brought some electrolytes at least with you, right? So, and they normally have some simple sugars in those drinks, which is a good thing. So, yes, if you’re going at a higher intensity, especially high intensity repeat, which can be in form of circuit training, like we do in CrossFit and or other boot camp style exercises, workouts, or you’re doing it on the road or on the track or in the water if you’re a swimmer and doing sprints there. Yes, 30 minutes before your workout, you should be ingesting about 30 grams of carbs, simple carbs, simple digestible. So we’re not talking about complex carbohydrates.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

And one of my favorites honey, as a good example. Yeah, simple honey, you can get the honey bear from the store and squirt it in your mouth, and off you go. And it doesn’t sit heavy, it tastes good. And man, those honey bees, they do so much really good work for our nutrition with the micronutrients. It’s a really good idea, instead of just white sugar type products, too.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Absolutely. Honey is great, but whatever is accessible to you. Like for me, bananas are great. Banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter is great too. Those kind of things like half a banana. Half a banana is actually 30 grams of carbs, so it’s it hits right that sweet spot that we are looking for. And honey is great too. If you have a tablespoon of honey, there you go. That’s all you need. So that and I wanna talk about what it means to break your fast. Okay. So to break your fast, you have to consume at least 250 to 300 calories. So if you’re eating just a hundred calorie slice of bread, let’s say you’re you just eat plain bread before your workouts, and or just a tablespoon of honey, you’re actually not breaking your fast. So, in order to consider it to be a breakfast where you’re actually breaking fast, is 250 to 300 calories. In nutrition science, that’s what we call actually breaking your fast. Now, is that recommended before high-intensity interval workouts? I’m gonna tell you yes, unless you’re that 4 a.m. person. And I’m gonna tell you why I’m saying that. Now, if you want to really push hard in your hit workout, ideally, this is how you should go about it. And an hour to 90 minutes before your workout, you break your fast with 250 to 300 calorie, whatever that is, maybe Greek yogurt with a bunch of with a full banana. Okay, it has a little bit of protein, no fats, you don’t want fats before your head because that’s gonna make you feel super queasy. And then you need carbs. So it’s a three to one carb to protein ratio. So three carbs, one part protein, okay. Then between 30 to 20 to minutes prior to your workout, you’re gonna take three to four sips of a simple carbohydrate drink, or maybe mix honey in the water and drinking. Okay, now you are ready for a full-fledged high-intensity interval training, workout, high-intensity head training of 45 minutes to an hour. You will not feel drained during that workout. The same, this same rule applies to workouts that are longer than an hour, even if they are not high-intensity workouts. Let’s say that you have um low-intensity aerobic workout. I’m not talking about aerobic threshold or high-end aerobic. This is low-end aerobic workout. You are gonna, you know it. You’re gonna go for a long run, you’re gonna go at least 90 minutes to two hours. So rather than hitting the road first thing in the morning, I would wake up 90 minutes before my workout. I would break my fast with 250 grams to three, sorry, 250 to 300 calorie, whatever that looks like for you, meal. And then 30 minutes before that long run, I’ll take three or four sips of an electrolyte, which has some simple sugars in it. And then I’ll start my workout. So that is what breaking fast consists of. And ideally, if you are gonna go for a long high intensity or because 45-minute high-intensity workout is a very long workout. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

If you know that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So when I say it’s 400 meter repeats, and sometimes I will do eight, 600 meter repeats 12 times around. That takes me an hour, 10 minutes if I’m giving enough recovery in between the intervals, right? So that being said, it’s a long workout. So you need those few calories. Your body’s actually craving those. And it’s so why do we break fast with 250 to 300 calories? Because that helps us store all those carbohydrates in our bloodstream that we are gonna use for the workout later on.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I love it. Right there, I have a great analogy. You’ve seen Fast and Furious, right? They have 10 of movies out. It’s hard not to know what I’m talking about. And I have boys, so that’s all we want.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

I’m like, you guys are like turning me into a boy. Stop. I want to watch some Barbie movies.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, yeah. We have three boys and a girl. So my wife has a sliver of the girl, but a lot of boy action here, right? But in that movie, they’re racing the cars, right? We have the gas pedal that that fires up the engine and gets released as gasoline to fuel the car to get it to go. We also have that little red button that’s on the steering wheel. That’s the NOS, the nitric oxide that they pump into the fuel to explode and create more combustion, more speed, more power. And we can just think of the glucose, the simple sugar, the carbohydrate, as that NAS button. So having it 30 minutes before, or even during, if you’re going over an hour and 30, you should probably have some 200, 300 calories, depending on effort intensity and duration of simple sugars in that workout. So you NAS the hit the NAS button again. And what it does is it preserves the gasoline in your gas tank. The muscles are your fuel tank, and therefore, we don’t want to use that because that’s when you bonk, you literally run out of gas and you cannot replenish it once you have depleted your muscle. So having those, the the that amount of fuel periodically throughout is it. So that’s a uh a fun, silly example I like to share, and it really hits. And I even do this, I rode two hours yesterday at a zone two, which is a low heart rate, and I work. I figured out they call it the temptation bundling. I need to work out, I have to work. Let’s just do them together. So I have this spin bike set up, I build a a stand up desk. Out of bed slats that we don’t use anymore, and I set my computer on it, and then I get to work. So I will bike and I’ll usually eat something beforehand, depending on whenever it’s in the day. But when I’m doing it, I will get off at about an hour, go move my legs a little bit, get out of this seated spinning position, and then go make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as an example because the jelly is that fast, the simple sugar. The bread burns next, and then the peanut butter lasts a little bit longer. So a 400-calorie P B J is an excellent fuel source for me to be able to go pedal the next hour and not bonk and run out of gas as an example. So totally agree. I’m doing the same things as you’re suggested.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s great. That’s a good affirmation for our audience, too. Like if the coaches are doing it, hey, guess what?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Something is right. So not that we don’t make mistakes. I know. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

We gotta stay humble. I bonk during workouts. That happens.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

In all honesty, I’ve learned this the hard way from bonking and from hitting the wall in my races and my workouts and not feeling good towards the end of the workout. So all of this has been like a lot of going to school of hard knocks, like actually learning from experience.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

My first marathon was the school hard knocks. I actually I thought I was fueling and I was all geared up. This was back in 2003. So I just dated myself there. But I was running, I was on 250 pace halfway through, and then I got that was at the half marathon, 13 miles, and I got to 20, and we came out of this the valley, as it’s called here, and we and then we were ascending for three miles basically, and then got out of that for the last 10k, the last six miles. And oh my gosh, I had baseballs in my hamstrings and my calves, and I couldn’t move. I literally, my my muscles would just and seize and lock me up. I’m just standing in this bent over, awkward position, looking like I’m contorted, and then finally the muscles were loose and relaxed, and yeah, but they’re depleted. And it doesn’t at that point, I literally was trying, I was swinging my leg out sideways to just have this really awkward toe point thing going on to not cause the cramp again, and then I’d finally be able to run a little bit. But if I push the pace, the cramp start would happen. And at that point, it was just survival. And I slowed down 20 minutes. Fortunately, I qualified for Boston. I ran 309 for my first marathon and I did boss on my second one. But man, I could have literally just been standing on the course, trying, willing myself to move, and my body wouldn’t move because of nutrition and bonking and running out of fuel. So that was a painful lesson that day.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I’ve been there too, so I can relate. I do want to highlight something before we move past fasted workouts, is that fasting does increase stress on your body and it increases stress in the form of cortisol. More cortisol is released in your bloodstream if you are working out in a fasted state. So that’s why limiting the fasted workouts to between 30 minutes to 40 minutes is recommended. And as I suggested, it’s like a low to moderate 60% to 75% of your one rep max, and it’s strictly like weight training, where it actually helps. That being said, I want to underscore something and really shout out from the rooftop here that women should not be doing faster workouts. Here’s why. Because our physiology is a little bit different than male physiology. When we were wake up first thing in the morning, we have a rush of cortisol. We just have naturally higher cortisol levels, especially in the morning. So you need to reset that cortisol levels before you hit the gym, even before you hit the weight rack. So for women, I would say 30 minutes before your workout, make sure that you’re waking up early enough that you have 30 minutes prior to your workout, where you can have something small, like half a cup of coffee. So my fasted workout is not exactly fasted, but here’s what I do. And most of the athletes, like pro athletes, do this too. Half a cup of workout, sorry, half a cup of coffee with some kind of creamer, right? It could be whole milk, or if you want another plant-based creamer, that’s fine too. Okay, because it has calories in it. So it breaks your fast. Second is you’re gonna have some form of simple carbs. Like for me, my go-to is half a banana and or peanut butter on top. So I make like a banana boat and I just put peanut butter on top, and it actually looks fancy and it tastes great. But or you could have a sports drink, half a bottle of sports drink after your coffee. Now that gives you that gives women, including me, enough fuel to break that cycle of high cortisol, cortisol. Because if you have high cortisol levels in your bloodstream and now you’re working out, of course, the primary goal for us to have that HGH higher and have more muscle mass. But what happens for women is that it causes your body to increase that cortisol even higher and use muscle protein for energy. So now instead of building muscle mass, you’re breaking your muscle that already exists in your body. So that’s where I would like to just I wanted to differentiate here or highlight this differentiation for women because fasted workouts do not work well for women. For men, they do. Yes, they do. But remember, even if you men or women, limit your fasted sessions to under 45 minutes. That’s where it works best.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah, I totally agree with that too.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Great. I know. So we talked in length about pre-workout nutrition. So if you have something that you want to share, we can go there. But I’m also wanna, and you give a great example of during your workout, like you’re eating PBJ. And I love PBJ’s guy, by the way. What else people should be doing during workouts if they’re going beyond an hour, if their workouts are longer than an hour?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah. Give some examples too. There can be a wide variety of different things from PBJ to a uh granola bars, graham crackers. You there’s a a significant amount of sports nutrition supplements that do this. I personally opt away from that because they just cost a lot more in terms of money. And when you have four kids and grocery bills already high, you just say, I’m not buying, or I’m not buying a $2.50 protein bar. I’m just gonna eat real food or the stinger gel or something, the goo. I’m not spending $2 for this 100-calorie thing that I can find other forms of glucose from. And primarily that’s the main thing that we’re trying to do. Certainly, there can be some electrolytes and such, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. So those are gonna be just basic simple carbohydrates. It could even be pretzels. If you go to an altered marathon event, you’re gonna see all sorts of stuff on the tables from pickles to for the sodium to you know chips, pretzels, goldfish crackers, flat coke.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Flat Coke is our best. Yeah, for ultra runners, it’s like flat coke.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Gummy bears, all this type of stuff, skittles, those are type of things that you could do depending on where at. And hey, if anyone is obviously paying attention to their nutrition and they do want to sneak in some sugary type things, that’s the best time is around a workout or during the workout. So, oh, I really like Skittles. Well, have that as part of your nutrition during intra workout nutrition, and it’ll help boost your blood sugar levels to then hit that NAS button again and allow you to keep the energy up and preserve your muscle glycans. So there’s some uh examples that we’ll mostly see that are available. Get a whole box of chewy granola bars and you’re set for a couple bucks. You’ve got lots of calories, carbohydrates that are easy to process, light on the stomach, and can keep you moving forward in a sense. So those are some actionable food sources that I generally recommend a lot. And again, I don’t really recommend the supplement type stuff, just costs more.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Absolutely, absolutely. It if and I think there are many ways to make it portable. I haven’t taken the time to invest in those things if I’m on the road. But that being said, I couldn’t agree more with you that whole foods trump processed foods at any point in time. Right. It just depends upon can you can you take it with you, like the portability, and then if it becomes perishable like in a very short amount of time, it’s hundred degrees outside today. So it’s probably not a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

And the nice thing is, if we’re saying cycling or you’re even running, you can have a cycle jersey that has pockets in the back, or we just carry a fanning pack or something. You can put a lot of some of these things inside those spaces that can transport really easily and it not be a big deal. So certainly we’re gonna stay away from chocolatey things because they will melt a lot. And then it’s gooey and it’s hard to eat, but a granola bar would be really easy to carry. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about post-workout fuel because that’s another thing. It’s my pet peeve because I get this question like again, so many times a week. I see patients coming in every single day, and they tell me like after the workout, the next their next meal is three hours after, and then they’re so ravenously hungry. Oh, goodness. And guess what? They’re reaching for those burgers and fries. I’m like, what do you know? But this is not the thing to that’s why the results are not there. Okay, let’s talk about it. What do we mean by post-workout fuel? What should people be eating or having as a meal? What time frame are we looking at?

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Yeah, we don’t have to literally. I remember the story of a guy that he this was way back in say 2000s when you had to have a protein shake immediately after your workout, and he forgot his protein shake at home, and he just basically white-knuckled his way home speeding so he could get his protein nutrition in right then. And we don’t have to do that. You don’t have to panic to eat in 30 minutes after your workout. There’s a certainly there’s a window of opportunity in which your body is like a sponge, and we go into the car wash. We have a full sponge of water and we’re sponging our car. That’s the workout thing, and our body’s the sponge, and the water is our nutrition and hydration and all that. And every circle of the workout or the the wax on, wax off of the car, we’re slowly losing the energy and hydration because you’re sweating and moving. But then we need to get the sponge back in the water after we’re done to replenish and not just leave it as a dried out sponge with a bunch of grime all over it, right? You’re like all sweaty and gooey. And we see this supported in science that the the window of time can be even up to two hours, so you don’t have to be crazy. It’s I’m gonna not gain muscle because I didn’t eat 30 minutes or less right after the workout. So and the bigger thing, we do have to have a I always like to think of it like this when coming to meal design. Protein, fibrous carbs is what I call like vegetables and fruits, and then stretchy carbs. We do want to have a lot more stretchy carbs around your workouts before, during, after, and that would be the best time to do it when you’re active, and then when you’re not so active, you can have easiest example of chicken salad. So we put the rice, the beans, potatoes, the pastas, breads and such can be really useful, hence why the peanut butter and jelly sandwich can be versatile because a slice of bread is 70 to 100 calories, you got about 150-ish or more on the bread. The jelly will be about 100, and the peanut butter will be 100 to 100. So it can be a 400-calorie replenishment for you to do. And then the rest of the day that that will say get the sponge back in the water and get it hydrated again in a sense with nutrition and carbs, then we obviously need to drink plenty of water and then just get back into normal behaviors around food and your calorie demands for the day. And if you’re doing macros, then we can just balance those out so that at the end of the day you still hit your overall goals.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Absolutely. I want to highlight what you just mentioned first the two-hour window. Yes. So the two-hour window post-workout. As soon as you finish your workout or you your workout, and after that, two hours is where we what we call the golden window of fueling post-workout. And then the second thing that you mentioned, have some carbs. That’s where you want to have some simple carbs because what happens is when you ingest simple carbs within that two-hour window, they open up those cells in your body to receive those amino acids. So all the protein that you’re gonna eat in that meal, along with simple carbs, it’s gonna help with the absorption of amino acids. So that’s where it’s important. And I want to expand on the time frame a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

I let’s do real quick there, just piggybacking what you just said. A simple illustration is we eat a bunch of carbs, our blood sugar levels go up, our body releases insulin. Insulin is a storing hormone, not necessarily good or bad, it just stores. So it’s gonna take all that extra blood sugar that’s above normal, and it’s gonna store it. It can store it into two different places into muscle. And she just explained that it’s open to receive the energy, and you can put all your carbohydrate coins in the muscle bank, so to speak. And then you can store in body fat. So think of it’s late night, I’m stressed out, I’m Netflix and chill, and I had some high carb, whatever. Yeah, you’re not storing anything in muscle because that the muscle banks closed at that late night. The fat bank is always open. You start putting those carbohydrate coins in that sector, and that is uh just some more to facilitate some of the physiology or how the actual body works, and so just had to throw that in there. So it’s great.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Oh, I’m so glad that you did. But because all those bodybuilders, when you see them, when they’re flexing their muscles and all those muscles that you’re seeing, actually, most of it, 70% of it, is muscle glycogen.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

It’s not the muscle fiber alone, it’s the muscle glycogen stored within the fiber that makes it look like that really pretty and swollen. Like for to me, it looks really pretty, Adam.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Yeah, it depends on what and even feedbacking on that, one gram of stored muscle glycogen can attract three to four grams of water. And there you go. That’s why they have the pump and they carb specifically D plead to rehydrate and replenish and all, and they get that massive pump that they’re trying to go out on the show in terms of say a bodybuilding physique competition.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, that that can happen for you too, as an athlete, if you take in enough carbs and enough protein after your workouts. Post-workout, again, we’re looking at three to one at least. I go for three to two ratio of carbs to protein. So simple carbs three, like some form of healthy non-processed grains, rice, quinoa, pasta, whole grain pasta, maybe even bread. Go for that. And then two parts of protein. So I’m talking about between, and I know I’m gonna say this, and you guys are gonna be like, oh, this is high, but I’m telling you, this works. Between 25 to 50 grams of protein. We are talking about yes, so palm size, palm size is 25 if fish fillet or chicken fillet and or steak. This is what we are looking at. Palm size is 25, around 25 grams. So you need two of those two palm sizes, your palm, not by palm, because it’s in accordance to your body’s needs.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

So that is what gear to help with it is we do things in ounces, right? Yeah. Four ounces. So four ounces, yeah. Sounds and soft. When you break it down, one ounce of most say land-based protein is about eight ounces, eight grams of protein. So one ounce is eight grams. So three times eight is twenty four. Four times eight is thirty-two. So it’s like a palm size, a quarter pounder is four ounces, and that’d be roughly 30-ish on average grams of protein. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Exactly what she’s saying.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Thanks for simplifying your math. Simplifying the math too. Yes, exactly. So that’s what I go for three to two. But if you’re someone who’s not as adapted to that, three to one ratio is fine too. It’s gonna help you. The other thing I wanted to mention, it really depends on the intensity of the workout, how soon you need to replenish your fuel. And okay, so hear me out. And I know most of my audience members are aware of it. We’ve done a deep dive into rate of perceived exertion a couple of times on the show here, but let me tell you what it means again. So we rank either from six to twenty if you’re following Borg scale, which I try to stay away with for simplicity’s sake. I go with one to ten. One to ten. So one is super easy, like I’m sitting and chatting with you, and I we both could probably go on forever. So that is a one, right? No effort, no extra effort required. And then 10 is where you do a hundred meter sprint, and you’re like, oh my gosh, this was tough. I need some recovery time before I hit this hundred meter again. Okay. So if that those are the two ends of the spectrum, then you can see five, six is a moderately hard intensity. If your workout is at an intensity of eight, nine, or ten, so eight or higher, within 30 minutes of finishing your workout, you need to have 25 to 30 grams of protein right away. Okay. And I’m telling you, that workout cannot, it’s probably not gonna be very long for you. It’s gonna be a 30-minute hit or probably 30 to 40 minute hit. And that would include your warm-up and cooldown. So it’s not really 30 minutes, all out intensity. So, that being said, that is where you’re gonna replenish. So your speed intervals, your hill, hill repeats, your high-intensity circuits, which are 30 minutes long. After that, you’re gonna replenish fuel in terms of amino acids right after the workout. So take your shake with you. If you have a lunchbox, which is insulated, keep it in the car and during summer months like we are in right now. Winter, it doesn’t matter, it would stay well. Okay. So, but if you if that’s not the case, if you’re going at an intensity or rate of perceived exertion of between four and seven or four and eight, you’re fine. That’s a moderately high workout. This isn’t a hard workout or high-end aerobic workout, how what we like to call the tempo session, you’re fine. You’re fine. You can wait. You can wait. If you didn’t get your post-meal workout within 30 minutes, I wouldn’t be concerned. You can get it within two hours. So that I wanted to make that differentiation. Okay, anything else, Coach Brian, do you think we missed something?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

No, we’ve covered a lot of bases, and even just going off of the rate of perceived exertion is a good understanding of do I need energy or not? How hard is this workout going to be? One to ten, five or less. Probably fine to do a fasted workout. And then six or higher. You we need to think in terms of being smarter and how to appropriate the right amount of calories and everything so that you are fueled and functioning and getting the most. Because again, nothing’s worse than say going to the track with full intentions of doing 10, 400s, which is a beast of a workout, and you falling flat halfway through. It’s just you just completely washed the whole workout and the next day of recovery as well. So it’s just not gonna Yeah, let’s mention recovery.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Actually, I’m glad you actually mentioned that. If you don’t respect the post-meal, post-workout meal timing, guess what? You’re gonna be sore for days. So if you want faster recovery, fuel within two hours. And if it is a high-intensity workout, all out workout, how I like to call it, within 30 minutes, amino acids. And then you can have your meal later because you probably are not gonna feel good that you’re not gonna feel hungry enough or good enough to be able to eat a big meal, but within two hours you should be able to hydrate and eat meal. So thank you, Coach Brian. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. This has been a great blast.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

This is so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yes, it’s always so much fun, and I think it’s gonna help our audience members a lot because there is a lot of confusion around eating around, eating meals or fueling around your workouts. So this is great. So thanks for your time today, and thank you everyone for listening to us. If you’re watching the recording, thank you for watching and listening to us. And I’ll be back soon with another live episode next week this time. So thank you.