Eating before/after working out

Question
I read an article in a magazine that said you can burn up to 51% more calories if you do not eat before and up to 40 minutes after exercise because blood rushes to digest food. I wonder if this pertains to coffee with a little cream.

Answer
That is one of the most ignorant and misquoted things "I've heard in a long while and Dogma that needs to be beaten down.

Now of course you could burn more stored body calories as you dont have calorie rich blood so lets say you dont eat and you burn 200 cals from stored stuff be it fat or muscle tissue break down. Now lets say you eat give yourself fuel which allows a greater training intensity so you burn 300 cals but of that only 100 is stored fat. OK you burnt 50% more, BUT this is ignoring the after burn. that higher intensity you were able to give from eating will have you burning cals for hours or days after the training session to repair things etc and your ramped metabolism so the end cost will be much more calories burnt from a great training session with food prior.

the exception I would make for this is very low intensity cardio activity like walking or other non panting work first thing fasted just to target fat loss.

as for your question on coffee. Calories count if you take in calories no your are no longer fasted by default. Black coffee no there are essentially no cals cream yes.

Phil Stevens

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