The "I Train FASTED and I LIKE IT" Thread
This Thread is an extension of the great discussion going on in the 24/7 Group Me Channel around fasting pre- and during workouts. It is also a counterpart to the thread where folks are sharing how eating before and during workouts helps them perform better. You can see that one here.
Diet is a completely personal issue, and in the interest of supporting your wherever you fall on the "calorie spectrum" you should understand both sides of the fasted equation.
If you DO NOT eat before and/or during your workouts on purpose, please share your experience and rationale with the Team so we can learn. And please take a moment to read the other thread (link ^above^) so you can see if there are lessons for you over there!
Thanks for sharing...
~ Coach P
Comments
I can’t get up early enough to eat before any exercise so all exercise including 5hr plus rides and long runs start fasted. I just start fueling early during the workout if going long or now during JOS I add 50 calories to water bottle for threshold bike workouts
OK, I give my report after 2.5 weeks of this daily 16 hour fast exercise.
This morning I drank water first 45 minutes of OS bike then, over the next 1.5 hours drank one bottle of GE and some black coffee. This after 13 hours of no calories. It worked. ~130 TSS ride.
I would not use my experience as a standard. I have a weird f@#!-up body with an overly sensitive GI gut, a type "A" personality that hangs out on the overly anxious side (which I try to hide), and an average but healthy physiology. I am NOT a talented athlete though I strive to work hard and smart.
After 2.5 weeks, I have actually gained ~3 lbs while losing 2 percentage points of body fat. My body comp has weirdly improved, less fat replaced by muscle which is a win at age 52. I'll report back again after another 2-3 weeks. So far, OS wkos have not been affected. I use a fitness APP (My Fitness Pal) to track calories ingested during the 8 hour feeding window and to help drive the right mix of Carbs, protein and fats (currently set at 50% carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat).
I eat lots of Costco/Sprouts organic lean meats, fruits and vegetables.
I'm really intrigued by IF and the 12n-859p eating and 900p-1159a fasting.
I'm not too much of a morning person, but I do have long workouts in the morning, and am mostly worried about:
1) fueling into a long workout, once you start it. Similar to what Shaughn mentioned above, to start fueling after the long workout starts.
2) recovery. Is recovery compromised, if say, I get a long run in at 8-930, and don't eat anything until 12n?
You can try BCAA's after a workout or move your fasting window to end after your am exercise - stop eating earlier the day before, and time your fast to end when your next day workout ends.
Over Christmas I started experimenting with a bulletproof coffee (8 oz coffee, 1 Tbsp Ghee, 1Tbsp MCT oil) in the morning 30-min before some of my longer, less intense, weekend rides and runs. Historically I down an espresso shot and jump on the carbohydrate train with a piece of Ezekiel toast and some honey prior to workouts.
I started to give this approach some thought after IMAZ in November when I had gut troubles during the bike and run. (Although I don't think it was caused by carbohydrates early in the a.m. since I did not have any problems during training)
My simple rationale on the bulletproof coffee is to process fats at the start of less intense workouts and delay my intake of simple carbohydrates (gels, GE, etc.). I've done 8-10 workouts so far and have not noticed any ill effects. I'm able to wait until about 60 min into a ride or run to start supplementing with carbs. For the shorter, intense workouts in the OS, I've stayed with the toast and honey as I want to ensure I am fueled at the start of those.
I'm not on any particular fasting protocol outside of a self-imposed food cut-off at 8:30 pm.
Like a scoop/portion of BCAAs in a glass of water? And that's it?
have any brands to suggest?
@Daniel Ballin @Scott Alexander
I'll address this first, then drop my Fasted Training routine in here as a separate post. I don't think BCAA's are effective (enough) for this. But, I am a HUGE fan of Essential Aminos where you get the entire assortment of AA's instead of just the Branch Chain AA's.
I take a LOT of Essential Aminos during all heavy training (i.e. IM build) and I take them after (and often before) all huge workouts. I even go as far as keeping them in a ziplock bag and take ~3-5 of them almost every hour during an Ironman race, but that's for a slightly different reason. Happy to elaborate on my "theories" as to why these are helpful, but basically during periods of (or instances of) intense training, I want to flood my muscles with the building blocks they need for recovery. Taking Essential Aminos is kind of like taking the useful part of a protein shake without all of the calories and without your body needing to break them down before they are useable. Some of my ultra buddies now also swear by a regiment of Essential Aminos during their very long races (think ~20-120 hours).
Here are a few specific brands, but personally, I think they're pretty much all the same, so I buy the ones I can find the best (per tablet) deal on:
https://getkion.com/shop/body/kion-aminos/ (I think the powder is nasty, so I use the tablets)
Thanks @John Withrow - I used to put UCAN and MAP in a blender to have amino acids in my bike nutrition when I was using UCAN. Used Infinit last year with added BCAA's but moving back to UCAN again so I appreciate the reminder. Can usually find deals in bulk.
I have done (nearly) ALL of my weekday workouts fasted for the past ~7 years. For the ~5 years before that I was basically a carb only eater (high carb, low fat diet) and fuelled ALL of my workouts (before and during) with some sugar product (gu's, gels, bars, gatorade, etc...). I have an Iron gut, so I would have no problem waking up at ~4:30AM, slamming a gatorade or taking a gu and hopping on my bike immediately and drink more gatorade and a couple more gu's over the next couple of hours.
Most of my peak training efforts (biggest numbers) came in the years during my fasted training, but correlation is not the same as causation, it just so happened that my fitness happened to grow over more than a decade of IM training, regardless of fuelling protocol.
I switched to lower carb, higher fat, "Eat Real Food" (limit processed crap) as my normal way of life eating and started working in fasted workouts for health and longevity reasons. I have a sugar addiction (well documented inside of EN). I basically decided that constantly dumping sugar into my gullet year after year (decade after decade) was not in my long term best interest. My parents are giant fat people who have developed diabetes from a lifetime of poor eating and zero exercise. I FIRMLY believe that I can do every bit as hard of efforts (VO2 and FTP work) very early in the morning on water alone, burning my own glycogen stores. I am not convinced that it is necessary to burn artificially inflated blood sugar to get the same benefits out of your workouts (for simplicity sake, lets say for less than ~2 hours). I have heard some say things like "sugar/carbs burn 'hotter' so that is necessary if you want peak performance during things like VO2 efforts", and that "might" be true... But I believe that if you're constantly burning sugar, you're also releasing a bunch of nasty free-radicals into your system as a by-product which for me makes recovery much harder. Take that "burning hotter" analogy to the real world... Anthracite Coal burns a a lot hotter than Natural gas, but it also releases a bunch of nasty toxins and pollution when you burn it...
Even in my gluttony phase (I gained north of 20 pounds in the ~6 weeks after Kona by stuffing my face full of cookies, chocolate, cake, brownies, pizza, etc) I still did my weekday workouts fasted. Not because there was any "free-radical" benefit given that my body was loaded with inflammatory agents, but because it's just how I workout. I never even considered changing my "short workout" fuelling because I never found any personal advantage to actually fuelling short workouts.
So here's my routine:
Every weekday workout year round (usually done between ~5:00-7:00AM), I wake up and workout with only water. I then shower, drive to work, organize my morning stuff at work, then head down for a giant omelet, with bacon, cheese, and every vegetable you can imagine around ~8:30AM or so... This is usually ~1.5-2 hours after my workout has finished (I also don't believe in the magic ~30 minute re-feed window after workouts).
During the OS, I also do my weekend workouts fasted with only water, but they are almost always <3 hours. I have no problems doing 3 hours of INTENSE work fasted as long as I have fuelled properly the day before.
During IM build, when I'm also doing long rides, I will generally fuel those. Often I will grab 5-6 bars and a couple bottles of Infinit and head out the door fasted and just fuel as I go. Sometimes, I'll eat a banana or a bar before I head out. I haven't noticed that either is any different for me. If I'm doing a proper race rehearsal, I'll eat something similar to my expected IM breakfast before heading out (sweet potato with butter, crushed walnuts, and maple syrup). But this isn't exactly comparable since this is generally very shortly before I head out but in an IM I'm eating a few hours before I race... I have done a few ~4.5-5 hour rides fasted, but that was mostly a mental test to see if I could and to really just force my body (and my mind) to be able to burn fat as it's only fuel pathway (after my glycogen stores were depleted). I'm pretty sure if you were ONLY a sugar burner, you would absolutely bonk if you tried this... But if you have conditioned (trained) your body to also be a fat burner, then this is absolutely doable. One of my ultra buddies has done some ~6-7 hour runs fasted (arguably at much lower intensity levels) and it absolutely saved his azz during lap 3 of The Barkley Marathon where he had carried enough fuel in his pack for what he expected to be an ~11 hour lap that turned into an ~18 hour lap... Imagine running your last ~6 hours completely fasted over crazy terrain when you are already ~30+ hours into a running race...
Camp weeks for me are totally different as I eat everything in sight during those weeks. My preferred breakfasts on those days would be 3-4 eggs over easy, an entire avocado, a banana, and some blueberries... But I know I will be in a calorie deficit during those weeks and take every opportunity I can to get in calories.
I've read from multiple sources and believe that after a nights sleep, one has enough glycogen stored in the body for 60 to 90 mins of physical activity (if they adequately fueled the previous evening). Therefore, for workouts lasting up to 90 mins typically I do not eat before or during workouts. However, if I have a brick workout or a second workout later in the day planned, I'll have sports drink/gel during the first workout. For workouts lasting 2+ hours, I will eat 100-200 cals about 30 to 60 mins prior and take a sports drink and/or gels during.