Dear Health Conscious Reader,
Ahhhhh … a giant plate of pasta the night before a big workout, long-distance run or a big game. It’s what all the athletes do, right? They load up on tons of carbs, so they can get the “extra energy” they’ll need.
Except that they don’t. Get the extra energy, I mean.
Conventional fitness trainers and nutritionists will tell you that pasta and carbohydrates are how you get the strength to perform at maximum capacity.
I’ve known this just doesn’t work. Now I have new evidence about why.
I just read a study in Exercise and Sport’s Science Review that shows why doing the opposite and ditching the carbs before you exercise is much better for you.1
In fact, I’ve read another study showing that people who stayed away from carbs before their workouts for 10 weeks gained “superior exercise capacity.”2
That’s because eating fewer carbs improved their “training adaptation.”
Training adaptation is your body’s ability to adjust to the physical demands you place on it. For example, when you start a new workout, you feel sore. But training adaptation gets you used to the new exercise, so you don’t get the sore feeling anymore.
Some of the more advanced athletes even use this method they now call “training low” – to train with few carbs in your body – as a replacement for the old method of the high-carb diet.
So if it’s not carbs, then what should you do for energy before a workout?
1. Eat the right protein: The first thing you want to remember is that protein isn’t just something you eat to “replace” what you lose in a workout. Protein is how your body sustains and metabolizes energy during and after your workouts.
The best source for protein before a workout is whey protein. Just make sure that the whey is from grass-fed beef sources. The whey protein cultivated from grain-fed cows is compromised and denatured. You get all the hormones and antibiotics that were pumped into the cow, which may even be in a more concentrated form.
2. Eat the right fat: You also can get energy before a workout or an athletic event by snacking on some fat. That’s right, fat. Remember, good fat is good for you. The best kind of fat you can take in before exercise is Alpha-linolenic acid or ALA. This powerful omega-3 fatty acid gives you energy that lasts longer than carbs.
Here are some foods naturally high in ALA that are perfect for pre-workout meals or snacks:
Walnuts Free-Range Eggs Dark Green Leafy Vegetables Wild-caught Atlantic Salmon Haas Avocados Sardines Butternuts Brazil Nuts Pumpkin Seeds Albacore Tuna
Black and red currant seeds also are good plant-based sources of ALA. But the world’s best source of ALA from plants is Sacha Inchi Oil from Peru. It’s nearly 50 percent pure ALA. You get almost 7 grams of omega-3 in each tablespoon full.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Hawley, J., Burke, L., “Carbohydrate Availability and Training Adaptation: Effects on Cell Metabolisms,” Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews 2010
2 Hansen, Anne K., et al, “Skeletal muscle adaptation: training twice every second day vs. training once daily,” Journal of Applied Physiology January 2005; 98 (1): 93-99
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