Pre, During, & Postworkout Nutrition.

[alan aragon]

ATTENTION: The latest update to these guidelines is right here. Please check it out before confusing yourself. At the earlier part of this thread, I was pro-high-GI postworkout, but after doing some digging behind the popular recommendation, it generally doesn't matter what GI your postworkout carb source is, as long as you don't neglect preworkout nutrition. Only athletes who train to glyogen depletion more than once per day might benefit from high-GI postworkout carbs. Otherwise, have the carb source of your personal preference.

[love_to_lift]

All the above I understand and is helpful. Where do we send the check?

The remaining two questions remaining in my mind have to do with (one) the effectiveness of doing cardio upon waking up in the morning without eating in order to burn the most fat, which seems counter intuitive to me, but many people seem to swear by it, (two) what and when to eat prior to going to bed at night.

Thanks in advance. I'm serious about the check...

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by love_to_lift
All the above I understand and is helpful. Where do we send the check?

The remaining two questions remaining in my mind have to do with (one) the effectiveness of doing cardio upon waking up in the morning without eating in order to burn the most fat, which seems counter intuitive to me, but many people seem to swear by it, (two) what and when to eat prior to going to bed at night.

Thanks in advance.

lol @ the check...

cardio upon waking in the morning on an empty stomach is ONLY fine if you train with weights at some other point in the day where you can properly feed your body pre & postworkout & undo the catabolic damage you did in the morning!

^^facetious.

theoretically, you can get away with minimal undue catabolism during empty stomach morning cardio if it's at a very low intensity. even then, the objective & concept of the activity is way off.. this is because the goal of training for fat loss is to cause a maximal thermic effect over the next several hours as a result of the exercise bout. concentrating on use of fat oxidation during fasted-state training compromises your intensity threshold, and therefore your afterburn -- and therefore your net thermic effect of training.. not to mention it also hikes up your cortisol levels and hence the degree of short & long-term muscle catabolism.

i am not at all a fan of training in the fasted state, under any circumstance. those who think they get better results that way either don't mind a greater-than-necessary loss of muscle, or simply don't have their nutrition planned right, and happened to incur an energy deficit by employing that tactic. keep in mind that the body can adapt to virtually any protocol over time, but there are just better ways of doing things.

prebed nutrition is rather simple, low- to moderate GI balanced solid meal with a concentration on slow release. there's more to it, but i gotta dip for now. i'll be back. thanks for the response.

[love_to_lift]

Perfect.

Next time you're in Southern O.C. let me know and I'll spark up the grill...unless you're worried about injesting too many carcinogens, in which case, I'll crank up the broiler.

The info is much appreciated.

[taffer]

WOW great article, make sure you post it on bb.com so i can book mark it!

i really liked that you brought up micronutrients, as alot of people just assume high-gi postworkout is good, but you need the nutrients inside the carbs to make you grow!!

a bit of it was over my head, but im sure i'll understand it eventually (i got an e-phd in nutrition from bb.com uni )

[xxghostxx]

Thank you for the clarification on everything, i really hope this becomes a sticky. I've been wondering where it is/why it is that you know of so much, and were giving speeches at the FDA and all. What is your background as far as exercise science/nutrition?

[hepennypacker52]

You say to conume the pre-workout shake about 30 minutes prior to working out. Would it be ok to consume it right before you workout? I workout right when I get home from school and the timing fits perfectly because I eat dinner then about an hour and a half after I finish working out. So I just get home, blend up a shake, drink it while I'm setting up my weights, and then when I'm done with it go right to the first set. Is this fine?

[alan aragon]

henny - that's perfectly fine. the main reason for that 30min lag between finishing the shake & training has mainly to do with making sure you lower your chances of throwing it up or experiencing focus-deterring gastro discomfort during movements that heavily involve your core, such as squats, direct abdominal work, etc. another advantage to the lag time is that it increases exogenous water availability to tissues, because at that point you're more in the absorption phase instead of the digestion phase... i sometimes time my preworkout shake to be finished immediately before my workout when i know i'm gonna have an extra hard, long bout that's not going to involve direct core work. to conclude, there's nothing inherently wrong with being more in the digestion phase during training, as long as you can stomach it -- literally.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by xxghostxx
I've been wondering where it is/why it is that you know of so much, and were giving speeches at the FDA and all. What is your background as far as exercise science/nutrition?

i have studied nutrition since 1990 & have 2 nutrition degrees (now picture the "whoop-dee-doo" motion). i was a personal trainer from about 1990-1995, and from then on i went full time with nutrition consulting & continuing education lectures to professionals in the allied fields. ego masturbation aside, i'm absolutely positive that everything is learnable, formal degrees or not. anyone can improve their knowledge, all it takes is time, effort, & an intense interest. i truly believe that the real genius lies in the dilligent & dogged study of the basics. a good starting text for ex-phys is "Physiology of Sport & Exercise" by costill & willmore. a good starting text for nutrition is "Optimum Sports Nutrition" by michael colgan (this is a little dated, but there's some definite gems in there; dude was way ahead of his time). one of the best overall texts by far is "Sports Supplements" by researchers jose antonio & jeff stout. if you wanna go hardcore with the fundamentals, get "Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism" by groff, gropper, & hunt. the list goes on, but as the saying goes, gotta give due credit since we only stand on the shoulders of the giants who preceeded us.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by taffer
i got an e-phd in nutrition from bb.com uni

bwaaaahhhhahaaaa!! classic!

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by love_to_lift
Next time you're in Southern O.C. let me know and I'll spark up the grill...unless you're worried about injesting too many carcinogens, in which case, I'll crank up the broiler.

i'll be in fullerton on june 12th giving a talk @ the spectrum club. i guess it's kind of a jog just to pick up that charred flesh! three cheers for consuming ashes, nevertheless.

[Marauder1905]

Nice

Alan, I know you've been answering all kinds of questions and it might get a little annoying after a while :P but I got one last one!


Ok, I am a swimmer and been swimming for around 14 years or so. I pretty much know how to feed myself except this workout thingy anyway:


I am trying to cut a few pounds atm, competition is kind of close...Anyway


We've been practicing a lot and our workout program 3 days a week is like this

No morning practice but during the after noon, we first go to weights, lift like hell and then we do some heavy training in the water. I bet I'm burning so much muscle during this process since we're training so hard and I am not quite sure on how to feed the muscles for this kind of a workout since this is a lot different than a typical bodybuilder's workout...

So what would you recommend for a training session of 45mins-1hr of lifting weights and then jumping in the water doing some moderate to high intensity training for like 80-90 mins....Yeah that's a killer...

What kind of a shake/meal would you recommend after/during the workout? Preworkout I can imagine but I am not sure about the during/after workout part....REMEMBER I"M Trying to cut some pounds as well, should minimize muscle loss!

Would be great if I could get an answer, really appreciate it.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by Marauder1905
Nice

Alan, I know you've been answering all kinds of questions and it might get a little annoying after a while :P but I got one last one!


Ok, I am a swimmer and been swimming for around 14 years or so. I pretty much know how to feed myself except this workout thingy anyway:


I am trying to cut a few pounds atm, competition is kind of close...Anyway


We've been practicing a lot and our workout program 3 days a week is like this

No morning practice but during the after noon, we first go to weights, lift like hell and then we do some heavy training in the water. I bet I'm burning so much muscle during this process since we're training so hard and I am not quite sure on how to feed the muscles for this kind of a workout since this is a lot different than a typical bodybuilder's workout...

So what would you recommend for a training session of 45mins-1hr of lifting weights and then jumping in the water doing some moderate to high intensity training for like 80-90 mins....Yeah that's a killer...

What kind of a shake/meal would you recommend after/during the workout? Preworkout I can imagine but I am not sure about the during/after workout part....REMEMBER I"M Trying to cut some pounds as well, should minimize muscle loss!

Would be great if I could get an answer, really appreciate it.

Originally posted by alan aragon
the LAST place you'd want to cut calories is surrounding your workout - even on a cutting phase! do what you can to trim down your other meals though the day, but only cut back on your typical pre/post nutrients if you've already cut things out elsewhere and still need to pull out some last-resort desperation tactics.

^^this is worth repeating. cut your intake everywhere else, and keep your pre/post intake consistent with the theoretics of anabolism/anticatabolism.

whether or not you should drink a 4-8% carb solution like gatorade or accelerade or powerade etc etc can only be determined by personal trial combined with meticulous journaling (or photographic memory). i can tell you for certain that you will perform better in your sport if employ the during-workout carb/electrolyte drink.. but will it hinder fat loss? maybe, but that really depends on how you modify the rest of your diet. will it better save muscle? definitely. at this point you're best off looking at how you can trim down your other meals, not the ones surrounding your brutal training sessions. g/luck.

[xxghostxx]

Hey alan, what do you think of Berardis Massive Eating Meal combinations involving Fat + carbohydrates in the same meal? Any thoughts on this?

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by xxghostxx
Hey alan, what do you think of Berardis Massive Eating Meal combinations involving Fat + carbohydrates in the same meal? Any thoughts on this?

i haven't actually read berardi's massive eating plan, but perhaps this thread covers a bunch of the questions you might have:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...0&pagenumber=2

[alan aragon]

i made some minor adjustments & additions (very minor), take note nevertheless.

uppin for the night crowd...

[Aticc674]

Very good article by aragon - but people should not read too much into pre-post workout nutrition. In my personal experience it never made a visible difference to my body whether I took high GI, low GI, dextrose, oats etc etc ...... as meals surrounding my workout. The most important number is the total cals at the end of the day....month....year...will determine whether you gain/maintain or lose muscle.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by Aticc674
Very good article by aragon - but people should not read too much into pre-post workout nutrition. In my personal experience it never made a visible difference to my body whether I took high GI, low GI, dextrose, oats etc etc ...... as meals surrounding my workout.

^^i said something similar to that in the intro (re-re-re-reead lol). to reiterate, we are nitpicking over what's optimal. that's what sports nutrition is all about - finding the edge. we accept the inevitable presence of large & small margins of difference alike.

The most important number is the total cals at the end of the day....month....year...will determine whether you gain/maintain or lose muscle.

i disagree. this is way too simplified of a statement. thermodynamic flux applies to total body mass, and not necessarily the composition of the mass in question.

thanks for reading the article.

[stabmaster]

I am sensitive to some things and my preworkout nutrition is one thing that can easily make or break me, especially since my bench has been level for over half a year (cutting). Bench is my energy-strength-stat. I'm a very anal prick and everything is recorded down to the minute. If there is that much food in my stomach during a workout I would vomit, I would have too much blood circulating around my stomach, and my lifts would hurt.

If you don't mind, I would like to share what makes my perfect workout:

-80 min 1c egg whites and 1/2c steel cut oats (35g protein, 35g carbs, virtually fat free)

-30 min green tea and/or synepherine (appetite suppressive)

-15 min 15g whey protein

That makes a perfect monster. There is certainly an empty stomach by the end but 35g of carbs has been the carb pre-workout pre-carbup standard for many bb'ers on keto- and I'm not keto-ing... I squat and dead, or squat and bench, on the same days and if you workout for more than 50 minutes than you probably need more energy. I can produce maximum power with this schedule. I'm 200 pounds, pretty chunky (16%?), and my bench just graduated to 435, but I can lose 50 pounds off that if my preworkout isn't on.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by stabmaster
I am sensitive to some things and my preworkout nutrition is one thing that can easily make or break me, especially since my bench has been level for over half a year (cutting). Bench is my energy-strength-stat. I'm a very anal prick and everything is recorded down to the minute. If there is that much food in my stomach during a workout I would vomit, I would have too much blood circulating around my stomach, and my lifts would hurt.

If you don't mind, I would like to share what makes my perfect workout:

-80 min 1c egg whites and 1/2c steel cut oats (35g protein, 35g carbs, virtually fat free)

-30 min green tea and/or synepherine (appetite suppressive)

-15 min 15g whey protein

That makes a perfect monster. There is certainly an empty stomach by the end but 35g of carbs has been the carb pre-workout pre-carbup standard for many bb'ers on keto- and I'm not keto-ing... I squat and dead, or squat and bench, on the same days and if you workout for more than 50 minutes than you probably need more energy. I can produce maximum power with this schedule. I'm 200 pounds, pretty chunky (16%?), and my bench just graduated to 435, but I can lose 50 pounds off that if my preworkout isn't on.

the beauty is in our individual differences. to contrast to what you outlined, one of our modest mods here has appx 130g carbs preworkout. everyone;s different, but it certainly helps to know the theory so that you can use it as a starting point & bend (or break) it in your favor. impressive bench, btw.

[as0l0]

Originally posted by alan aragon
impressive bench, btw.

yeah, your huge

[sawastea]

Great stuff, Alan

I'm getting tired of giving you props. My keyboard can only take so much abuse

DS

[Bodybuilder1]

hey but if i eat fruit for post w-o dont u think the fiber in it will slow the meal down and not get so absorb......i am thinking of takeing whey / dex/malx/ vitamins and minerels supp/ is this ko?

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by Bodybuilder1
hey but if i eat fruit for post w-o dont u think the fiber in it will slow the meal down and not get so absorb......i am thinking of takeing whey / dex/malx/ vitamins and minerels supp/ is this ko?

most fruit barely hits 2-3g fiber per serving unless you're talking about berries, which can sometimes hit 4g. lol don't worry about it; it's not like you're gonna throw 4 fruits into your postW shake.

far as taking whey + only dex/malto, that's on you my man. i've said it before, i see something inherently wrong with what should theoretically be your greatest single macronutrient hit of the day being basically an attempt at enriching/fortifying a micronutrient-free glucose source. i think dex or malto is a fine adjunct for kicking things up a notch, but even when coingested with pills, it's still a shadow of what it could be - either compared to, or combined with, a whole food or semi-whole food carb source.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by sawastea
Great stuff, Alan

I'm getting tired of giving you props. My keyboard can only take so much abuse

DS

if you stop giving me props i'll stop posting here, & keep my mind's madness confined to paper!

[zackmurphy]

Originally posted by alan aragon
...that's where an intelligently concocted prebed meal helps (another topic!)....

Hey Alan -

What are the chances of the pre-bed meal topic being addressed in similar detail?

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by TeamRamrod
First off, thanks for your replies. Couple other questions off of the above quote. Yes milk provides a big insulin spike because of its sugars, BUT since casein and slow digesting, doesnt it take longer for the insulin response to occur?

not necessarily, especially when you consider that it's in combination with other insulinogenic compounds which can often lead to a synergistic increase in insulin output. this type of phenomenon is seen many times in research, a good example is work by ivy & van loon.

AND, doesnt milk slow down the protein being digested along with it?

yes, but this is not at all a bad thing in the case of milk. you see, milk has substantial insulin-generating ability AND other growth factors. casein allows IGF-1 to maintain its binding capacity & structure whereas IGF-1 would normally undergo significant denaturation by the time it hits the blood. this quality tends to counterbalance & even supercede its slow absorption & processing. whey does not exert these same positive effects on IGF-1 the way casein does, nor does it have the same positive effect on nitrogen retention. there is nothing particularly special about making sure casein doesn't get in the way of whey absorption. in fact, to play devil's advocate, one might better ask why include any whey if it's gonna get in the way of casein . the answer to this is that whey contains, among other things, a significant hit of much needed BCAAs, a uniquely anabolic amino profile, and it also can synergize with milk/casein to hike insulin levels beyond either protein source by itself. chemical teamwork.

If alot of people live by drinking milk before bed because of the fact it is slow digesting, preventing catabolism, or muscle loss, I guess I am just confused oh how it can be used as a fast digesting source(pwo) and a slow digesting source(before bed)???

i see how this might confuse you, but you have to think outside of the box. you've fixated on quick digestion postworkout to a point that might have clouded your view of some of the nuances i listed above, like IGF-1 & synergistic insulinogenesis.

and yes, it's a good tactic - at least theoretically - to have a slowly processed protein like casein prebed. but, milk is much more versatile than that. again, you gotta think outside of these preconceptions. i hope that helps open some doors in your mind.

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by zackmurphy
Hey Alan -

What are the chances of the pre-bed meal topic being addressed in similar detail?

i'll work on that, & then attempt to drop some logically sound framework with some solid data. i have the info in mind, but it definitely treads upon theoretical ground, like a lot of stuff we discuss, & hence i'd like to organize it properly first. btw, i actually posted this thread upon your suggestion, so you might just get a prebed posting as well!

[taffer]

i have a question about the amount of cals in the pre/post workout meals

i have been playing around with a new diet (so far just done pre/post workout meal in the morning) and just wonder if the figures 0.25g/lb target BW protein and 0.5g/lb target BW carbs applys to people on cutting diets as well? or is this more of a bulking figure?
i assume if it is an all-around figure, then you should lower your cal's later in the day to make room for your pre/post workout meals

thanks for your help!

[alan aragon]

Originally posted by taffer
i have a question about the amount of cals in the pre/post workout meals

i have been playing around with a new diet (so far just done pre/post workout meal in the morning) and just wonder if the figures 0.25g/lb target BW protein and 0.5g/lb target BW carbs applys to people on cutting diets as well? or is this more of a bulking figure?
i assume if it is an all-around figure, then you should lower your cal's later in the day to make room for your pre/post workout meals

thanks for your help!

yes, those ballpark benchmarx apply to cutting as well. EPSPECIALLY prebed. night workouts rev up thermogenesis substantially though the night while we sleep. even couch potatoes, depending upon LBM, burn appx 500-900 cal in a typical sleeping cycle. BBrs undersetimate the catabolic nature of sleep. it's nature's way of making sure we don't grow faster than necessary.

if you're cutting, decrease calories everywhere else besides your pre/postW meals. attack those as a last resort if you've maxed out your options.

i know some of the things i say go against conventional wisdom. but if conventional wisdom was all-knowing, we'd have a bunch of huge ripped beasts predominating instead of remaining the minority.

i'll be back, gotta run 4 now.

un0