Eating & Training

I’ve struggled with this concept for awhile (for reasons I’ll explain in a bit). For the most part, I’ve always had a decent concept of macronutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) and their roles in making your body go. With that said, I’ve never had much discipline in maintaining any sort of structure or consistency with eating and training.

I’d go through phases where I wanted to lose weight, so I’d workout first thing in the morning (usually some type of HIIT thing) on an empty stomach. Or, I’d train on an empty stomach in the afternoon or whenever else. I was pretty much always training hungry. I was willing to sacrifice performance all in the name of shedding fat and building muscle. Or so I thought.

For me, training on an empty stomach was sort of a recipe for disaster lack lustre results. I’d workout on empty, eat clean for the morning and afternoon, and then pop-off at dinner time. Because I was so hungry and lacking structure, I’d easily consume 2-3 servings at dinner, along with god knows how many snacks before bed. Not good.

As I mentioned in my first post, I’ve been following the principles of Renaissance Periodization (RP) for the last month. In it (amongst other things) is the concept of workout fuel.

For me (everyone’s different. RP is based on your weight, your goal, and then some genius creates a template for you to follow. I’ll have more of RP in another post soon, I promise), I consume 35 g of protein powder with about 25 g of workout carbs (Gatorade, Powerade, etc.) and some water during and after my training session.

I feel it’s been a total game changer–especially for the more intense metcons or longer lifting sessions. I just have more energy and strength, which makes the workout actually kind of fun. I feel like I’m accomplishing something, and not just eeking through it. And I’m seeing physical results.

Anyways, the point of this post isn’t to get too far into RP. I’ll for sure do that another time. I’ve read a lot of stuff over the years about the benefits of training on an empty stomach and I’m here to tell you it’s all a lie. Well, maybe it’s not quite a lie. I don’t know. I guess everyone’s different. Putting a little extra gas in the tank seems to be working for me so far. And maybe it will for you too.