What If I Don't Eat Carbs After A Work Out? page 2

[Damiana]

Which is why you eat primal, so that your body burns fat for energy instead of carbs from glycogen...

[jackson44]

If your WOD is very intense (EX - CrossFit), you may used up all your stored carbs in your muscle. If that happens, you need carbs to restore them. Also, if you don't eat for a while, your body can go into catabolic state where it uses muscles for stored energy. Eating fresh carbs will stop/blunt this from happening.

[counterpuncher]

If you're carb-depleted, and you work out with intensity, your body will use protein for fuel.
Fat is used for fuel during low intensity exercise/activities.
Carbs will spare protein when working out with high intensity, and also save your body from converting protein to glucose to replenish glycogen afterwards.

[spuggygirl]

I sometimes don't eat after a workout - especially if it is later in the evening (and a little late for me to eat a meal), however recently I've found that if I don't eat, I just end up extra hungry the next day.

[eKatherine]

Countless media and fitness people keep saying "because you need to replenish your glycogen stores bla bla". Honestly I have no idea what it means, and I doubt they do either.

The "science" behind a lot of common assumptions about how we are told we "must" eat is very slim. It is often based on laboratory experiments that found a vanishingly small effect that is likely less than individual variation.

[Ayla2010]

If your WOD is very intense (EX - CrossFit), you may used up all your stored carbs in your muscle. If that happens, you need carbs to restore them. Also, if you don't eat for a while, your body can go into catabolic state where it uses muscles for stored energy. Eating fresh carbs will stop/blunt this from happening.

I didn't. And I was doing CF 5 days a week. 100% effort.

[jakejoh10]

From my personal experience, I feel better when I have something like sweet potatoes post-training, along with a high protein meal.

It provides a good amount of fast-digesting carbs for an insulin spike and somewhat replenishes glycogen for training the next day.

Also, because I train in the evening, the simple carbs causes a rebound drop of blood sugar, which helps me sleep.

Just my experience.

[eKatherine]

I think a big part of it is whether you are a big eater or not. If you normally only eat 2 light meals a day, you will probably be fine not adding a post-workout meal. If you normally eat a lot, then follow your hunger.

[Neckhammer]

2/4 workouts a week I won't eat anything for 4+ hours after a heavy session.

There is a lot of ways your question could be made more specific (thereby making a specific answer easier). But, a very general answer is that if you have 48+ hours before your next high intensity effort you have ample time for your body to restore glycogen via all the methods at its disposal. You will build muscle and restore glycogen in that time period just as someone who chowed down right after their workout does. Your total caloric and macro load over those 48 hours are really all that matters.... not some imaginary post workout window.

If on the other hand you plan on working out again that very same day you do not have enough time to replenish all your muscle glycogen via methods other than ingesting carbs.

[zoebird]

This is all true it happened to me twice last week

I know. I run the international sugar conglomerate -- being one of the immortal illuminati like Keanu Reeves -- and we keep an extensive list of everyone who does and does not eat "adequate" sugar, using our special radio technology from outer space, for which the "international space station" is just a front.

We use our special weather machines to send the swarms of bees and scorpions when we are not creating snowmaggedons and hurricanes at the east coast and deep south. We simply redistribute sugar from sweet tea through the weather, but we noted that a good side effect of our machines was the control of certain insect populations. It became even more handy, then, to simply use it to send swarms when someoe was "acting up' and not taking in adequate sugar.

We are wathcing you, Tribal Rob. We Are Watching.