Working out while fasting (lifting weights, gym, drink, fast)
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I need to weight 175. I have been at 188 for a while, but I'm not discouraged. I've been at it for almost 2 years. 5'10" man.
I was reading about fasting. OK. I don't really do that. Not really.
But I decided to try it, and one of the texts said to try fasting on workout days. That's 3 days a week for me. One hour. Fasting while working out is supposed to trigger autophagy.
Today was the day. No breakfast, but plenty of water.
Nausea! Bad! About 45 minutes into my routine it hit. That happens once in a while and when it does I just quit - right then.
I'm going to try again on Friday, just to see if fasting is actually the cause of my nausea, or if it's something else. Determined to lose those last 13 pounds! I've lost about 30 so far, and it's kinda fun.
Your body needs fuel to exercise, and you're not going to get a good workout if you feel nauseated. Just eat something. And really, if you're working out and eating nutritious food and engaging in other healthy behavior, it doesn't matter that much about an arbitrary number on the scale.
Without adding electrolytes to your water, you'll be miserable. Research electrolytes and water fasting. A little sea salt, potassium, and magnesium will support your fast and you'll feel better.
The autophagy stuff is really stupid. It's based on mouse studies which have faster metabolisms. E.g., with genetically modified mice that are then killed to collect tissue samples they can determine increased autophagy at 90 minutes of exercise. Maybe another study found it at 60. Mice have very, very different metabolisms than humans though. Namely a mouse will typically starve to death in 2-4 days which isn't a problem for a healthy human. Increased autophagy through starvation or energy depletion where the body turns to cannibalizing its old cells as an energy source at a higher rate is not likely to be as fast as it in mice. We're just a lot better adapted at storing energy. It's all speculative and will never be anything but speculative. It would take a long to to raise genetically modified humans to run similar tests on, not to mention in most countries you can't just kill or even just lobotomize your test subjects for tissue samples.
Putting that aside, it's all about intensity. Back in the day when I was racing, I regularly did fasted lower intensity rides where I'd do 50-60 miles before eating and just drink water. There's a lot of pseudo and not as much science to it as I'd like, but that's pretty common in sports particularly endurance ones. For high-intensity efforts you need glycogen. As a general rule of thumb there's only about 2,000 calories worth of that stored in the body so if you habitually deprive the body of sugars and exercise at low intensity in a carb-depleted state it forces the body to develop the other energy source which is all that glorious fat tissue. Like I said, we're better at it than mice. Even the fat mouse will die of starvation while still being fat if you withhold food from it. They're just not that good at it. Humans are, but by specifically training in a carb-depleted state that doesn't mean you can't get better.
If you're looking at say marathon or ultra runners a major, major limitation is the ability to keep up with carb burn. They're working intensities that require a fair amount of glucose to sustain but there's only so much food you can eat while you're running a marathon. That's commonly referred to as the 20 mile wall. 20 miles, about 2,000 calories, about what your body holds. Glycogen being the primary source and in particular with modern eating habits where we've also got sugar available, that's what predominantly burn. Once it's up you hit the wall or "crack" and shutdown as you desperately cling to your remaining carb stores. NFL does a similar thing, train depleted and then play loaded. It's not exactly scientific but pretty common.
My first double centuries in cycling were pretty disastrous with lots of GI issues from trying to stuff enough carbs in to keep going. Later years were not. I'll never know if it was the fasted long rides and fat adaption or just adaption in general. Not really sure how you'd apply it to weight loss though. That's always just been CICO for me. If you're not gobbling the typical preworkout smoothie it's less calories. It's a pretty easy skip for most people whereas the recovery one with somewhere in the range of 2:1 to 4:1 carb to protein has a lot more going for it. 'Course it's also a bit of a trap. Most people burn about 200-300 calories in an hour at the gym lifting weights so 300 calories of recovery smoothie you just ate everything you burned. The recovery window is an actual thing with validity to it but it's still calories. Don't get me started on the grande Frappuccino reward for 30 minutes in the gym =D
I need to weight 175. I have been at 188 for a while, but I'm not discouraged. I've been at it for almost 2 years. 5'10" man.
I was reading about fasting. OK. I don't really do that. Not really.
But I decided to try it, and one of the texts said to try fasting on workout days. That's 3 days a week for me. One hour. Fasting while working out is supposed to trigger autophagy.
Today was the day. No breakfast, but plenty of water.
Nausea! Bad! About 45 minutes into my routine it hit. That happens once in a while and when it does I just quit - right then.
I'm going to try again on Friday, just to see if fasting is actually the cause of my nausea, or if it's something else. Determined to lose those last 13 pounds! I've lost about 30 so far, and it's kinda fun.
Anyone out there ever try this? Got any opinions?
I'd check your blood sugar level prior to working out!! Could be going low...the cause of nausea.
In any event eat something before you workout.
Without adding electrolytes to your water, you'll be miserable. Research electrolytes and water fasting. A little sea salt, potassium, and magnesium will support your fast and you'll feel better.
That's a good idea. I read some articles and it looks like you could be on to something.
I'll try electrolytes - I already drink plenty of water - as a supplement before my next workout on Friday. Fasting in my case means 17 hours between meals, and then I go back to normal meals, making sure that I do not overeat.
It's just something new for me. Kinda fun.
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