Morning Workout and Breakfast

[futuregovernor]

I have been reading this forum for a couple of weeks now and I wanted say that I have been very impressed by the courtesy and thoughtfulness of the community. Having stated upfront that I didn't know anything, the advice that everyone has given has been very helpful.

All of that said, I have another question to ask.

With three children under the age of five and job that requires a lot of evening speaking engagements and long hours the only time I have to workout is first thing in the morning. If I don’t get up and get a workout in by six it won’t happen. Thanks to advice from this forum I have dumped P90X in favor of Turbulence Training which allows me to workout at home while my kids are still asleep but I am confused about whether or not to eat breakfast afterwards or not.

I always eat after my workout. I’m not always hungry but I have always thought that it was the “right thing to do” in order help me lose fat. I eat the same thing every day which is a slice of salt cured ham that I get from a local butcher and two whole eggs all of which I fry in lard so there’s some protein but also quite a bit of fat. Is this something that I should stop doing?

I have made my carb night Saturday and pushed my workout until noon and then eat until about 6 or 7 as spelled out in the book as an acceptable option. Am I doing this wrong?

As I have said before my real goal with all of this is to win the battle against my man boobs and look better in a suit and tie. I sincerely appreciate all of the help that this forum has given me toward that end.

[ibobland08]

Avoid breakfast for three hours or more after waking.  You don't have to eat when you are done working out, eat just whenever you feel hungry.  Not eating until three hours after waking is the only constraint.

[Jeremy]

Holding off on breakfast is a small tweak that is used to force ketone use for fuel and spike growth hormone.   It is not a requisite to make CNS work... CNS was written without this at all and works exceptionally well as written.

The morning fast was written into CBL, partly to help people that consume carbs every night still use fat as energy, and to accelerate the small daily fat-loss window in CBL.  Your fat loss window on CNS is all day, every day.  However, you don't need that post workout food if you are sticking to a workout regimen that works with CNS... i.e. intervals, but no steady state cardio.. if lifting, never lifting to muscle failure.

Since you are on CNS, you spend your entire week pulling your energy from fatty acids, so one of the benefits of extending your overnight fast is already lost.

Ultimately, I wouldn't be overly concerned about applying fine-tuning techniques to the diet like morning fasting unless you reach a point that your fat loss stalls out and you need to find something to push you over a threshold.  Should you choose to extend your fast, ensure you have good intake by 12-14 hours since your evening meal to avoid muscle loss, and feel free to use MCTs or butter anytime as small amounts won't interfere with the morning hormone cascade.

[Naomi Most]

futuregovernor:  Turbulence Training is a form of resistance training.  So eating breakfast afterwards, especially if you're hungry, is probably the right thing to do.  If you're into it, take a whey protein isolate shake (no carbs) along with 5g of Leucine.  If you'd rather have real food, eat real food.  If you decide not to eat, that's fine too, since your goal is fat loss and not muscle (but I would recommend having the postworkout meal).

Guys:  Not that I'm against injecting information about CBL into discussions of Carb Nite, BUT... I have a feeling that CN posters aren't going to get much use out of responses that include the words "hormonal cascade".