early morning nutrition

[trontheman]

Hey guys, I'm about to switch to early morning workouts to free up my afternoons to spend more time with my newborn and wife, and I'm curious how those of you that lift early eat the night before and before lifting.

I know that a big meal first thing won't be good on my stomach, but I'm not trying to lift fasted. I was thinking some liquid egg whites with a small cup of oatmeal, along with my preworkout/coffee. Would you guys recommend loading up on carbs the night before?

Thanks guys

[adpowah]

Just my experience but occasionally I lift in the morning, I don't eat before and when I am in an overall caloric surplus I don't notice a difference. If you can have at least an hour or two between the workout and breakfast I wouldn't worry about it.

[lancs_hotpot]

Big carb meal the night before and a light protein source with a carb drink in the morning. Thats what id do anyway.

[Jacobcapra]

If you're not trying to bulk I wouldn't recommend eating carbs within 2 hours of going to sleep. When you sleep your body burns almost exclusively fat, ensuring that any carbs you eat before bedtime will be stored as fat and not as glycogen or used as an energy source. So it probably wouldn't help you with energy in the morning if you did anyway, they will have long been digested by then.

In my opinion carbs in the morning would be best, I think your oatmeal sounds perfect. Fasted workouts will only mean your numbers will suffer and you risk protein breakdown in your muscles to fuel your exercise.

[308smk]

If you're not trying to bulk I wouldn't recommend eating carbs within 2 hours of going to sleep. When you sleep your body burns almost exclusively fat, ensuring that any carbs you eat before bedtime will be stored as fat and not as glycogen or used as an energy source. So it probably wouldn't help you with energy in the morning if you did anyway, they will have long been digested by then..

Wat.

OP If I had to lift in the morning, id be cramming as much food in before bed as physically possible, and again before lifting.

[Jacobcapra]

Wat.

OP If I had to lift in the morning, id be cramming as much food in before bed as physically possible, and again before lifting.

Yes food for sure, fat and protein. But carbs (especially simple ones) don't get utilized well if digested while asleep. Also this is just within a relatively small time window before bed. If you eat at 7 or 8 and go to bed at 11 you can eat whatever; the macros will be digested before you go to sleep then anyway.

[308smk]

Yes food for sure, fat and protein. But carbs (especially simple ones) don't get utilized well if digested while asleep. Also this is just within a relatively small time window before bed. If you eat at 7 or 8 and go to bed at 11 you can eat whatever; the macros will be digested before you go to sleep then anyway.

[Jacobcapra]

lol hey by all means if you're not trying to cut or remain in a weight class eat what you want. But you're insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance are much more suited to use carbs in the morning versus at night. if you "cram as much food as physically possible" in your body at night, and then again in the morning, you're probably going to gain weight. Seeing as Tron has 7 lb. of play room in his weight class, maybe that would be fine.

[adpowah]

I'm pretty sure that the no carbs at night has been disproven and is no longer inline with current understandings of metabolism. But maybe I'm wrong.

[Jacobcapra]

I was just reading about this, too. Many of the arguments have been disproven. However most of the articles address eating carbs at night as a "nightmare." I'm pretty much just saying if you want energy for a morning workout, IMO you should eat in the morning when you're much more sensitive and ready to convert that into glycogen.

You should eat for what you're about to do; if you're about to sleep, a meal appropriate for a workout would not be useful.

[xMarx]

Yes food for sure, fat and protein. But carbs (especially simple ones) don't get utilized well if digested while asleep. Also this is just within a relatively small time window before bed. If you eat at 7 or 8 and go to bed at 11 you can eat whatever; the macros will be digested before you go to sleep then anyway.

thats weird, cause ive been eating roughly 50% of my carbs right before bed and i have no issues dropping body fat. but hey, that's just me.

OT
eat anything small?
protein shake
banana
peanut butter on toast
oats

or like others have said, big meal before bed

[Jacobcapra]

thats weird, cause ive been eating roughly 50% of my carbs right before bed and i have no issues dropping body fat. but hey, that's just me.

is this within like 4 hours of a workout? Also, do you intentionally do this? I read about about a study that claimed eating 50% of your carbs at night versus small amounts through the day was good for maintaining weight and satiety.

[308smk]

Holy fuk bud, take your head out of the textbooks and studies and use some common sense. This is the powerlifting section not the beach body section.

If you've trained that day, nothing is going to make you recover better than a high calorie, fat and carb heavy meal. Thats because when you have a bigass meal before bed, it takes hours to digest, giving your body energy while you sleep and your body rebuilds.

If you eat at 5-6pm and then don't eat again till 7-8 am, that's 10 hours without food. Maybe for fatloss its good, but for lifting performance and recovery its terrible.

If you want to do a real world experiment, before your next squat day, eat a large meat lovers pizza before bed, and carb up again before lifting. Get bloated as ****.

Then on your next squat day, don't eat **** all that night or before lifting. Then come back here and compare how each day went for you.

[adpowah]

If you want to do a real world experiment, before your next squat day, eat a large meat lovers pizza before bed, and carb up again before lifting. Get bloated as ****.

I am dieting right now, I'm going to dream about that meat lovers tonight...

[trontheman]

Thanks guys. I think I'll stick with the liquid egg whites and a couple bananas along with coffee, then a protein/oats shake post. Then my typical day of eating.

[Anthony21]

Holy fuk bud, take your head out of the textbooks and studies and use some common sense. This is the powerlifting section not the beach body section.

If you've trained that day, nothing is going to make you recover better than a high calorie, fat and carb heavy meal. Thats because when you have a bigass meal before bed, it takes hours to digest, giving your body energy while you sleep and your body rebuilds.

If you eat at 5-6pm and then don't eat again till 7-8 am, that's 10 hours without food. Maybe for fatloss its good, but for lifting performance and recovery its terrible.

If you want to do a real world experiment, before your next squat day, eat a large meat lovers pizza before bed, and carb up again before lifting. Get bloated as ****.

Then on your next squat day, don't eat **** all that night or before lifting. Then come back here and compare how each day went for you.

Can confirm the meat lovers pizza leads to PRS.

[NC_Tarheel]

Any time I lift in the morning (4:30AM) I don't do anything special the night before...I just eat like normal. When I get up, I slam a preworkout or caffeine tab + coffee (if it's winter) and start sipping on a mixture of 30g of dextrose and 30g of protein isolate or hydrolysate and drink that throughout. That's what works for me


EDIT: LOL @ no carbs before bed

[Jacobcapra]

Holy fuk bud, take your head out of the textbooks and studies and use some common sense. This is the powerlifting section not the beach body section.

Admittedly I have been cutting for the last 8 weeks and decided to PL again during that time, the two are butting heads. I can gain weight like nobody's business so I have to be careful.

[Dahmkooler]

I highly recommend a hot shower to get all the joints and tissues warmed up, along with a longer warm-up routine at the gym. Other than that, I definitely find my best performances ever have been first thing in the morning with a pre-workout shot of caffeine and ~ 40 grams of gatorade and some BCAA's.