Question for the brain trust, is it better to work out before or after you eat? I'm on OWL and usually exercise shortly after I eat. Thanks for your comments in advance, Stan

You could probably find 100 different answers to that question. Some people will tell you to exercise before you eat so you burn your stored fat, others say after you eat and you will burn up that food anyway. Either way you are burning something I guess. Me personally, I workout at night an hour after I eat. It helps give the metabolism a boost while you sleep too. Otherwise I feel too sick if I haven't eaten. I also get sick if I workout in the AM no matter if I eat first or not. However some people will say that you should work out in the morning that you will burn more stored fat. You just have to do whatever you think is best and whatever makes you feel best!

im totally different.. i work out better on a empty stomach.. thats why i do it before lunch [10am] and before dinner [5pm].. it all depends on you.. you are burning calories no matter when you eat.. and a calorie is a calorie no matter when you eat it :] its your total for the day that you have to worry about

let your body tell you whats best for you

Before a meal or 1 hour after a meal.

Either way, calories are being burnt.

No matter what you do, you're not going to 'burn' what you just ate.

Either way though, you do want to do it before or 1 hour after.

The combination of your workout and your digestion greatly increases your metabolism.

Doesn't matter when you work out, but sometimes a bit of protien before you workout will help you get through it. I usually have 1/2 carb bar or deviled egg before heading off to the gym after work. If I don't have anything to eat, I'm dragging halfway through my workout.

Regardless of when you workout, you continually burn calories and increase your metabolism, so I think the best time to work out is when YOU feel best, and everyone has their high-energy times.............

Good luck!

LL

I usally work out in the afternoon, about 4 hours after lunch. I always drink a glass of carb control milk after I eat (for protien) and try to eat within 45 min after eating.

I do it first thing in the morning before eating, both HIIT cardio and weights, alternating 6 days a week.

Wow...I wish I could pick a best time to workout based on food ect.
My best time to workout...is whenever I have 1 hour to get my bum to the gym and workout!!!!
I grad that time whenever I can!!!
(it's usually at 8:30pm....mon and wednesday nights.)

I work out about an hour after lunch and the weight is continuing to slip off gradually. I tried to do the first thing in the morning, but I found was way too sluggish and easily fatigued to get through cardio effectively. I much prefer to do it after lunch.

This is a post from Natrushka that I placed in my journal. I want to share it with you.
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http://www.sixpacknow.com/fatlosstips.html

"Continuous cardiovascular exercise, such as walking, jogging, stairclimbing, or cycling, sustained for at least 30 minutes, will burn body fat no matter when you do it. However, if you want to get the maximum benefits possible from every minute you invest in your workouts, then you should consider getting up early and doing cardio before you eat your first meal - even if you're not a "morning person." Early morning aerobic exercise on an empty stomach has three major advantages over exercising later in the day.

First of all, morning cardio burns more fat! Early in the morning before you eat, your levels of muscle and liver glycogen (stored carbohydrate) are low. If you eat dinner at 7 p.m and you eat breakfast at 7 a.m., that's 12 hours without food. During this 12-hour overnight fast, your levels of glycogen slowly decline to provide glucose for various bodily functions that go on even while you sleep. As a result, you wake up in the morning with depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar - the optimum environment for burning fat instead of carbohydrate. How much more fat you'll burn is uncertain, but some studies have suggested that up to 300% more fat is burned when cardio is done in a fasted, glycogen-depleted state.

So how exactly does this work? It's quite simple, really. Carbohydrate (glycogen) is your body's primary and preferred energy source. When your primary fuel source is in short supply, this forces your body to tap into its secondary or reserve energy source; body fat. If you do cardio immediately after eating a meal, you'll still burn fat, but you'll burn less of it because you'll be burning off the carbohydrates you ate first. You always burn a combination of fat and carbohydrate for fuel, but depending on when you exercise, you can burn a greater proportion of fat relative to carbohydrate. If doing cardio first thing in the morning is not an option for you, then the second best time to do it would be immediately after weight training. Lifting weights is anaerobic (carbohydrate-burning) by nature, and therefore depletes muscle glycogen. That's why a post lifting cardio session has a similar effect as morning cardio on an empty stomach.

The second benefit you'll get from early morning cardio sessions is what I call the "afterburn" effect. When you do a cardio session in the morning, you not only burn fat during the session, but you also continue to burn fat at an accelerated rate after the workout. Why? Because an intense session of cardiovascular exercise can keep your metabolism elevated for hours after the session is over. If you do cardio at night, you will still burn fat during the session, so you definitely benefit from it. However, nighttime cardio fails to take advantage of the "afterburn" effect because your metabolism drops like a ton of bricks as soon as you go to sleep. While you sleep, your metabolic rate is slower than any other time of the day.

Burning more fat isn't the only reason you should do your cardio early. The third benefit of morning workouts is the "rush" and feeling of accomplishment that stays with you all day long after an invigorating workout. Exercise can become a pleasant and enjoyable experience, but the more difficult or challenging it is for you, the more important it is to get it out of the way early. When you put off any task you consider unpleasant, it hangs over you all day long, leaving you with a feeling of guilt, stress and incompleteness (not to mention that you are more likely to "blow off" an evening workout if you are tired from a long day at work or if your pals try to persuade you to join them at the pub for happy hour.)

You might find it hard to wake up early in the morning and get motivated to workout. But think back for a moment to a time in your life when you tackled a difficult task and you finished it. Didn't you feel great afterwards? Completing any task, especially a physically challenging one, gives you a "buzz." When the task is exercise, the buzz is physiological and psychological. Physiologically, exercise releases endorphins in your body. Endorphins are opiate-like hormones hundreds of times more powerful than the strongest morphine. Endorphins create a natural "high" that makes you feel positively euphoric! Endorphins reduce stress, improve your mood, increase circulation and relieve pain. The "high" is partly psychological too. Getting up early and successfully achieving a small goal kick starts your day and gives you feelings of completion, satisfaction and accomplishment. For the rest of the day you feel happy and you feel less stress knowing that a difficult part of the day is behind you. "

Im up at 6 am. When I walk the children to their bustop 4 blocks away I take the long way around back home. Gives me a half a mile boost before brekki. Im not the biggest exercise buff

I go for a run before eating in the morning, at first i couldn't do it but lately I feel energetic enough to do a 5k no problem! Either way you'll feel great the rest of the day!