Breakfast and Morning Exercise

Hey guys,

Hope you enjoyed the hot weekend! Summer is in Cape Town BIG TIME!
Well, I am true to my word and started the exercise week with a bang! At 7a.m. (an ungodly hour for the weekend, in my opinion) I was in my tekkies and running up Chapman’s Peak! One whole hour of running!

When I got back home I had breakfast – oats, yoghurt and an apple and then headed to the grocery store. For my “snack” I had a slice of toast with fat free cottage cheese and toast turkey. By the time lunch came, I was too hot, so all I had was a protein bar. Mid-afternoon I had one tomato with two slices of melba toast and a meal replacement shake around 5p.m. Then for dinner I cooked some chicken with soya sauce and feta – tasted great with a salad.

I must have drunk at least three litres of water and absolutely nothing else. I really had a 10-star day and I HAVE TO see the results in the damn scale this week! Have a happy Monday!

Mel

Jeni
Well done, Mel! It sounds like you really did have an awesome day and trust me, you WILL lose the weight. Just stick to the program!

Now, the subject that Mel brought up today is one causing a great debate amongst nutritionists and trainers the world over. It’s like “the chicken-egg conversation” of the sports nutrition field. The question is: If you exercise first thing in the morning, should you have breakfast before or after the training?

Both options have pros and cons and I will give them to you in brief:
Exercising on an empty stomach first thing in the morning is great if your goal is to lose weight. You see, when you eat something, calories get distributed to various processes of your body and approximately 300 calories get stored in your muscles as glycogen. This glycogen is used to fuel your activities until your next meal, basically. If you use it – great; your body will then move onto stored fat as energy. If you don’t – the left-over’s will be added to the stored fat. The case to exercise first thing in the morning, before breakfast, then becomes pretty obvious. The 300-odd calories that were stored in your muscles since dinner are now fully exhausted. (Breathing, heart beat and all that “automatic” stuff that happens while you sleep costs calories, you know…) Therefore, the moment you hit the road, you are dipping straight into your “fat savings account” which is generally located around your hips and thighs.
To make a long story short, if your exercise goal is weight loss, activity first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach is a good idea.

And now comes the BUT…

But, there is another point of view. Many athletes believe that exercising on an empty tummy sends the body into hypo-glycaemic state which you may not be able to come out of for the rest of the day. This is clearly not good news if you are an athlete, concerned with your performance (speed and endurance) rather than weight loss. Not to mention, that when people exercise on an empty stomach they tend to only complete 50%-70% of the workload they would complete if they had eaten. I know that the people following this blog don’t necessarily care much about running 10K in 34 minutes or less, but it doesn’t end here.

Certain conditions, namely pre-diabetes and low blood pressure, may be adversely affected by exercising on an empty stomach, so please be careful. If you have lower than normal blood pressure or pre-diabetes (which you would only know about if you had a blood test measuring your blood glucose levels) you are doing yourself more harm than good. Rather have a small snack (a protein bar is a good idea) and make yourself happy with slightly slower weight loss than get yourself into trouble. Rather safe than sorry…

Have you guys had any experiences around exercising on empty stomach?

Ciao!

Jeni