How do you Warrior Diet if you Morning Exercise?

[stand@desk]

For those of you who are living the Warrior Diet/Lifestyle, how and when do you exercise and when do you eat after that exercise?

Since I workout/run in the mornings, I have a hard time understanding how I could not eat until much later in the day if I were to employ the Warrior Diet. Does your body not need to refuel sooner than later after exercise?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[jacob]

Glycogen reserves are sufficient for 2000kcal worth of effort. The body does not need to refuel with food. It can happen with fat reserves.

However, if you do something of longer duration, e.g. a 2 hour run, the official recommendation is that you're allowed to eat some carbs (e.g. oatmeal).

[Dragline]

Since I workout/run in the mornings, I have a hard time understanding how I could not eat until much later in the day if I were to employ the Warrior Diet. Does your body not need to refuel sooner than later after exercise?

No, it does not, but it does depend on what you are doing and whether you are trying to achieve a particular performance level or just engaging in some activity. It may take your body some time to adapt, though, so I would not try this right away (or go easy).

Alternatively, I often use MCT oil as a calorie source that does not interfere with the fasting cycle.

[vexed87]

I get extreme hunger pangs if I skip breakfast and cycle to work (1 hour of moderate exercise), I gave up on the WD after 2 weeks of 'suffering' . That said, it would be probably be ok to eat an apple or something.

Out of interest, would a green smoothie be considered ok in the morning if doing the WD?

[Ego]

I don't do Warrior but I do something similar that works well with morning exercise. I eat after my morning workout. Today, for instance, I ran 70 minutes and finished with hill repeats. I am eating my big morning green-smoothie-oatmeal-flax meal now. (8:15am) and will eat again at about 1:30 or 2:00pm then fast until tomorrow morning. Normally that six hour window is a bit later, 9am to 3pm.

It takes a little while, but once you train your body/mind that food will not be coming until after the workout, you just don't get hungry. Eating in the evenings does not work for me.

[DSKla]

As Jacob and Dragline said, it depends on what you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish. You don't need to eat unless you are shooting for the higher ends of performance, like endurance events or an intense lifting session designed to build lots of strength and muscle mass. If you want to be Klokov, WD won't work for you. If you're a recreational athlete, you should be fine not eating.

If you're really worried, you could post a sample workout that you'd be doing. Otherwise, just note your energy levels and progress. Low energy and little to no progress month-to-month would indicate you need to eat a bit.

[BRUTE]

energy, especially low or medium effort, is much better supplied by fat than by glycogen (like jacob mentioned). but it can take weeks to months for all body tissue to adapt to using ketones for fuel.

for more strength based workouts, brute has heard humans taking 10g of BCAA (brain chain amino acids, a certain type of protein) 10 minutes before. supposedly it helps muscle growth in a fasted state. some also say a similarly small amount of just any protein would have the same effect.

brute just trains fasted and doesn't seem to experience any problems, but he's also not an elite-level lifter.

[enigmaT120]

Maybe you just get used to it. A few weeks ago I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't go back to sleep (felt rested) so I decided to start swimming a week earlier than I had planned. Drove to my work town and swam laps for an hour without stopping (well over a mile, but I can't count laps). Spent the day at work (nothing strenuous that day), then ran 5 miles after work in about 38 minutes, then went home and ate a huge dinner. I don't do that all the time, and I'm not even a real believer that the WD is any better than anything else. It just reflects my preferences for how I do work on my days off, so my confirmation bias makes me think it must be good. But I wasn't hungry. I almost never experience hunger pangs, maybe I've got enough fat to always use for fuel when I need it.

[BRUTE]

1lbs of fat has around 3,500kcal. almost all humans have enough fat on them to last a few weeks at a time.

warrior diet isn't necessarily better or worse than anything else, but it's a very strict (20/4-23/1 fasting hours/eating hours per day) intermittent fasting regime. other popular ones are 16/8 or alternate day fasting, or 5:2 days per week.

there are proven benefits to fasting, including positive effects on insulin resistance (and therefore glucose control), and basically everything else that ketosis does. because fasting pushes the body into ketosis.