Not eating after a workout is counter-productive and unlikely to increase fat loss. Diet mindsets encouraging food restriction can interfere with your ability to reach your wellness goal, whether weight loss, athletic performance, muscle building, or general health.
Yes, you will lose weight but the weight loss will be lower as your body will reduce metabolism as a safety measure. If you continue working out without eating, you will be losing lean mass ie muscles.
You will lose muscle first before anything else. Your recovery after training will require further calories which will burn more muscle so you lose 2x times the muscle. The retaining of muscle in a caloric deficit is tricky itself and to not eat anything is a complete downhill way to approach lifting.
Eat after you exercise
Eat a meal that has both carbohydrates and protein in it within two hours of your workout if possible. Eating after you work out can help muscles recover and replace their glycogen stores. Think about having a snack if your meal is more than two hours away.
Studies show that even waiting two to three hours after a workout before eating promotes a rise in growth hormone, which helps make you a fat burner and replaces the used energy (sugar).
When you exercise in a fasted state — after a night's sleep and before you eat breakfast — then you do actually use more fat as a fuel source during exercise. But research from my team has shown that performing exercise in a fasted or fed state does not have any meaningful impact on body fat in the medium to long term.
That plan is called the 30-30-30 rule. It's a simple but catchy idea that encourages you to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up and then get 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise. The 30-30-30 rule now has millions of followers on TikTok.
For women, the results show that eating before they exercise is better than eating after if they want to burn fat. Women's bodies tend to burn fat more easily than men's, and are not fuelled so much by carbohydrates. Moreover, women are much better at conserving carbohydrates during exercise.
Overtraining and undereating can not only cause you to lose efficiency, but it can also cause you to lose muscle mass. If you have weight loss goals, eating less may sound like a good idea, but if it doesn't align with your fitness goals, you won't see the results you're hoping for.
When on a weight loss journey, lack of protein is a huge culprit of muscle loss. “Our bodies don't store protein like other nutrients, so it's important to eat the right amount every day,” says Kate. “Everybody is different and will have different protein requirements.
Most adults do not need to eat back their exercise calories because they are doing moderate activities, like walking, biking, swimming, weight-lifting, etc. These activities do not burn enough calories to require a post-workout snack, particularly if weight-loss is the intended goal.
You're Breaking Down Your Hard-Earned Muscle
If you're not fueling your muscles properly after a workout, you could lose all the muscle-building benefits that you were achieving. “Your body is using energy constantly throughout the day, even when you aren't exercising," Jones says.
The short answer: Many experts suggest having protein after a workout to build muscle mass. But preworkout or postworkout protein may help. Strenuous exercise creates microtears in the muscles. After a workout, your body repairs the damage using amino acids from dietary protein.
"Working out when sore is okay as long as it isn't affecting your movement to the point where it's causing you to compensate and do something in a way that's unsafe," says Dr. Hedt. "Muscle soreness can be a deterrent to exercising, but it's temporary and the more you exercise, the less you should feel it.
If you weren't racing your event, taking fewer recovery days is fine. For example, if you were racing a 10k, you should take six days' recovery, but if your run effort wasn't all-out, such as running at a marathon pace or moderately as a fun run, then taking between 2 and 6 days is fine.
Although the evidence is mixed, many studies suggest that cold, especially cold-water immersion, is better than heat for exercise recovery. Many experts, including the American College of Sports Medicine, recommend cold instead of heat therapy to aid muscle recovery.
Not eating after a workout is counter-productive and unlikely to increase fat loss. Diet mindsets encouraging food restriction can interfere with your ability to reach your wellness goal, whether weight loss, athletic performance, muscle building, or general health.
Overall, the experts agree: Exercising in the morning is the best time of day to work out for logistical, effective and health reasons. When it comes to weight loss, a 2023 study published in the journal Obesity found exercising between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. could help.
Lifting and doing strength training without adequate nutrition, especially without enough protein, can actually lead to loss of muscle tissue. Furthermore, if you aren't eating right you won't have the energy to do the workouts that lead to muscle gain.
When it comes to nutrition advice via social media, trust me, I've heard worse. The 30-30-30 method refers to consuming 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking, followed by 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise. Biologist Gary Brecka describes the diet on TikTok, which now has more than 17 million views.
For example, to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week — a rate that experts consider safe — your food consumption should provide 500 to 1,000 calories less than your total weight-maintenance calories. If you need 2,325 calories a day to maintain your current weight, reduce your daily calories to between 1,325 and 1,825.
4-Hour Body Diet: Health Risks
Restricting entire food groups could lead to deficiencies in certain vitamins and other nutrients, including vitamin D and calcium (found in dairy) and B vitamins such as folic acid (found in grains and fruit).