Eating with Exercising - Why it is Important to Do So

The amount of energy your body uses (calories you burn) and how much energy your body takes in (calories eaten) should be in equilibrium all day. It is important to understand that opening sentence in order to achieve the ideal weight. The average person will burn around 100 calories an hour at rest and during sleep, subsequently you don't just need energy for exercising, you need food throughout the entire day. If you are an active person, then eating big meals, or going for long periods without eating, you upset this balance and that causes extreme energy highs (surpluses) or lows (deficits.)

Once you first wake up, you are probably low on energy. Here is the reason why: Let's say you ate dinner at 7 p.m. and had eaten nothing else until breakfast at 6 a.m., you have gone 11 hours without added fuel. Your body burned around 1,100 calories during this period (based on the average). The calories used would have come from your stored fat and glycogen (carbohydrates). You only have a limited supply of carbohydrates for the reason that they are stored only in diminutive amounts in your liver and muscles. Although the body has ample amounts of fat stored, for the fat to be metabolized (burned), carbohydrates must be present. Generally, in most people, the liver's carbohydrate stores are exhausted by morning time, resulting in a state of energy deficit, where there are not enough carbohydrates to provide energy and encourage fat utilization for their bodies. In consequence, they need breakfast to instill more energy into themselves.

During exercise you are spending your energy reserve and more calories need to be taken in to energize the activity. Just how much you should eat and when depends on the type and extent of your workout. You also need to factor in WHEN and WHAT you ate last.

By skipping breakfast and doing a robust workout, you are putting a depleted body into even greater depletion. Let's use a 500 calorie burning workout as an example: When you finally eat at a later time, you will have gone into an energy deficit of roughly 1,600 calories (1,100 calories burned sleeping and 500 from working out). Your metabolism is now screaming for sustenance. Conversely, you might not even feel hungry in this state (ketosis) because your metabolism has gone into starvation mode to safeguard its own resources. Subsided hunger is one of the side effects of this process. Just because your tummy's not rumbling, does this signify your body is not necessitating fuel - it absolutely is! Reality is, you must eat, at some juncture, and will probably end up binging to compensate and propel yourself into a mammoth energy surplus. It is, simply, not healthy to be yo-yoing your calories in such a manner.

Drastic calorie peaks and valleys are not a good thing. Research has shown there are higher levels of body fat in men and women whose daily eating patterns fluctuate wildly. This was found to be true even if the total daily calorie input/output was balanced. Also, lower energy levels and poorer mental focus were noted in these people.

In order to get the best possible performance, your energy intake (calories) should be equivalent to your hourly energy expenditure. I admit, measuring your exact energy-balance status is virtually impossible, unless monitored in a lab. However, by eating small-to-moderate sized meals every three to four hours, you are able to dodge dramatic energy fluctuations. When engaging in long or intense exercise sessions, eat more before and during these sessions to compensate and maintain caloric equilibrium.

What happens when you don't maintain the energy balance? You burn the carbohydrates in your muscles and that actually atrophies them. Oddly enough you are not burning fat when your put yourself in this condition. In fact, exercising in an energy deficit, your body is likely to preserve fat and perform poorly. If you are running out of steam during your workout, you are probably in an energy deficit state. To counteract this condition you need fast absorbing carbohydrates with a high glycemic index. A sports drink or energy gel is the easiest absorbing solution, although bread, juice, some fruits or an energy bar work too, but not as quickly.

On the other hand a high intensity workout of more than 60 minutes requires replenishment and fairly quickly. You have a 45 minute metabolic window subsequent to the workout stage. This is when enzymes that reload the muscle carbohydrates are at their peak levels as well as insulin levels which are busy rebuilding your protein storage. During this time frame eat a carbohydrate and protein mix like yogurt and fruit, peanut butter sandwich, handful of nuts, or bagel with cream cheese. This will replenish your glycogen stores, preserve muscle and decrease the amount of fat your body stores. Losing out on the metabolic window is faulty practice: If you impede refueling, you slow carbohydrate replenishment by 50 percent and protein repair by 80 percent.*

If you are going on a walk for up to an hour you probably don't need to worry about extra energy. This is one of the best ways to burn fat. You want to slightly elevate your metabolic rate and that is about the extent of the effort required. Do this (walk) for a 30-60 minute time frame and that burns the most stored fat. Anything more rigorous than this without extra fuel and the metabolism starts to feed on the muscle mass will be doing more harm than good.