Though you wouldn’t want to do it with every workout, skipping the pre-workout nutrition has been a common practice with runners and athletes for years in order to jumpstart our bodies’ fat burning mechanisms. Recent research confirms this practice. A comparison of cyclists showed that those who worked out, rested (but didn’t eat), and then worked out again burned a greater amount of fat during the second workout than those who fueled up in between. The downside? The performance of the starving cyclists suffered and the fat burned was primarily intra-muscular fat (the fat within the muscles, rather than right below the skin)…not exactly the most effective recipe for a beach ready body. If you want to give the practice a try (it MIGHT make a difference for you), once a week, use your fitness equipment in the evening, skip a post workout snack and in the morning have a 20 to 30 minute workout again before breakfast. After you workout, have a good meal with a combination of carbohydrates and protein to re-build your muscles and re-load your carbohydrate stores. This will ensure that the meal you take in after your workout goes to fueling your performance rather than being stored as fat. Be sure to practice good fueling before the rest of your weekly workouts (think a light carbohydrate snack before your workout), if you want to keep seeing the cardiovascular and strength gains in your performance.
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