eating during a workout??
- Thread starter R1balla
- Start date
Type O Hero
Banned
When you workout your body starts shunting blood to the muscles, which is what we want. When we eat our body starts shunting lots of blood to the digestive system to help aid in the digestive process. So if you eat a meal while working out your body is going to start moving more and more blood to the digestive tract to help aid in digestion. Think about it.. We only have so much blood! 
This is why it's not good to eat a big meal right before you workout and best to eat a light meal after you workout. You want to put some much needed nutrition back into the body but you don't want a lot of blood being moved to your digestive tract. You want that blood to keep going to your (pumped) muscles as long as possible because the more blood flow, the better nutrient deliver, among some other processes. Having a whey shake and maybe some carb replacement after a workout isn't going to require a lot of blood being moved to the gut like a larger meal would. You can eat another good sized meal as little as 30-40 minutes to an hour later and be good to go because by then your body has started to return to baseline and you're more than ready for that blood to head towards the gut!
This is why it's not good to eat a big meal right before you workout and best to eat a light meal after you workout. You want to put some much needed nutrition back into the body but you don't want a lot of blood being moved to your digestive tract. You want that blood to keep going to your (pumped) muscles as long as possible because the more blood flow, the better nutrient deliver, among some other processes. Having a whey shake and maybe some carb replacement after a workout isn't going to require a lot of blood being moved to the gut like a larger meal would. You can eat another good sized meal as little as 30-40 minutes to an hour later and be good to go because by then your body has started to return to baseline and you're more than ready for that blood to head towards the gut!
R1balla
Board Sponsor
well u actually have about 5L of blood lol but ya i get ur point about the blood and the muscles...but what about if u eat lean turkey and have the protein going to your muscles while u train. would that be better than blood? and u dont grow while u workout, u grow when u sleep...
gamer2be08
Banned
I say no to eating while training due to the fact that blood will flood your digestive system. Maybe drink an amino acid (intra-workout) mix while working out to feed your muscles.
Type O Hero
Banned
The digestive process doesn't work that fast. If you ate right before you started training or while you were training, you wouldn't be absorbing those nutrients and using them right away; it takes a while for solid foods to be digested.
Peace
Zero V
Well-known member
Honestly when I was doing OVT training(still my freaking favorite, a buddy came once, lifted with me, was sore for 3 days hah). I would eat 1 can of tuna right in the middle. Now consider the workout could take up to an hour and a half thanks to the size of it. So at like the 40 minute mark I would take a 5 minute breather and eat. Always came back feeling refreshed.
R1balla
Board Sponsor
i know that. but something light and full of protein would be digested faster so by the time your workout is over it would be being digested and ready to be sent to your muscles...so how does amino acid intra workout drinks work compared to a few slices of turkey during a workout? they both have 2 be digested...why is one ok and the other not
Rodja
Board Sponsor
Free-from and peptide-bound AA have much different digestion rates. Plus, look at the difference in overall serving sizes (~20g of BCAA/EAA compared to 100+g for lean meats). Bigger sizes take more time, bile, and blood to digest and assimilate into the system.
Bottom line, eating while training is counter-productive because it diverts away crucial blood (and, therefore, nutrients) from the muscles to the digestive system.
WarMachine000
Member
It doesn't digest that fast- not fast enough to be used instantly. When the protein does finally get to the muscles, it's shuttled by the blood. Whey is fast-digesting, and requires less blood than something like oatmeal or a sandwich. Even though lean meats digest faster than fatty ones, it still takes hours. Especially with the fiber from the bread and/or oats. If you feel like something in your belly helps, I'd go for something like some of the other guys said- whey and Carb drink. I like a bottle of half Gatorade and half water sometimes at the beginning of my wo. Towards the end the carbs are hitting, I've refilled the bottle with water only, and my insulin is primed for my people shake. Hope this helps. Wish you well with your training.
R1balla
Board Sponsor
ya i didnt mean the protein will get to your muscles asap lol lemme explain...u need to eat right after you train...correct? i was simply suggesting eating during or towards the end of training to have those nutrients in your muscles even faster THEN have a meal post workout..just a thought.
Type O Hero
Banned
mkretz
Well-known member
personally i tend to train for a while.... anywhee form 1.5 to 2 hours so like an hour to 1hr 15 min into my workout i start drinkin my shake and eating dextrose candies like smarties, sweet tarts etc. I basically do this for 2 reasons .... 1, my body probably needs it after an hour or so and 2nd it lets me have my pwo meal sooner. I dunno if this is optimal (any input guys lol) but i like it, gives me a treat during the workout lol. I also sip on a scoop of extend and a scoop of purple wraath throughout the workout including after i have finished teh shake and carbs
Type O Hero
Banned
Keep your workouts short and intense. After warming up, about 45 minutes is as long as you want to be weight training (no more than 1 hour). Besides losing mental and physical energy, your body will start releasing catabolic hormones. During the first parts of your workout, your body will be releasing anabolic hormones, so take advantage of this by not working out to the point where you go catabolic, then drink your shake. After about 45 minutes or so of intense weight training your body is screaming for amino acids. If you don't give your body what it wants (i.e, whey shake), it's not going to wait around on you; it's going to start eating your muscle tissue for amino acids. The list goes on - trust me, keep your workouts short!
There are probably hundreds of threads on this forum talking about this, so I'd do some research if I were you. You can go ahead and keep working out for as long as you are but you'll run into a wall pretty quick and you won't see progression anymore. In fact, you're likely to regress.
Peace
WarMachine000
Member
When I first started training (ten years ago) me and two other guys would lift for two to three hours. (No knowledge of aminos just post wo shakes.
We had great endurance but couldn't figure out why we weren't getting bigger (although we did get stronger).
We trained hard six days a week, going through our body in three days two x's a week.
Finally I learned more about the body. Training with a four day split, taking off every other day, hour tops lifting.
Drastic improvements in hypertrophy.