"Do you eat before you workout?"

"Tara, do you eat before you workout?"

I got this excellent question recently on instagram. Here's my 1-minute video response. :-)



Everyone is different! Play around with meal timing around your workouts — or just in general — to find out what you feel best with.



For me, I used to feel awful working out while fasted. I also used to have PCOS, insulin resistance, and prediabetes. I was a metabolic mess!! So, feeling cr*ppy while working out fasted was one of the things that tipped me off to being “off”.



As I became healthier, more metabolically flexible, and more fat-adapted (no, I’m not keto), I started noticing I could do more and more intense exercise without fueling up first. Truth is, we all have sooooooo much fuel already on our bodies as stored body fat. Even if I’m lean, there’s no reason to “need” to eat before a workout.



Now, if tip top performance was the goal (a race, game, or competition), filling up my glycogen stores before said activity would give me a little bit of an edge. But in my daily strength training sessions, bike rides, runs, hikes, or HIIT ... it’s just not necessary.



Another important note: for the average person (not a pro / competitive athlete), protein timing isn’t nearly as important as people will have you believe. I don’t rush to get it in post-workout. I just make sure I get the amount of protein my body needs (about 80-105g per day) throughout the day in a variety of ways.



Second half of the video I’m showing you a pretty typical meal I break my overnight fast with.



Questions about protein, meal timing, metabolic flexibility, or ... whatever? Leave ‘em below!



XO,
Tara



P.S. Yes my lip is bleeding in this video. They were dry that day and happened to crack right before I shot this. Allllllll good. 😝 (You’d be surprised. People notice — and comment about — everything on social media! 🤣🤣).

Stubborn Weight Loss?

There's weight loss....and there's STUBBORN weight loss.

You know the kind, right? It's often the last 5 pounds as opposed to the first 5 pounds. It's when you feel like you've tried everything, but nothing works or lasts (even though it seems to work for everyone else!).




Bad news, good news. Bad news first? Ok.... there isn't anything different about the way your body works.



Ready for the good news? There isn't anything different about the way your body works. ;-) We all have very different energy needs, for sure. This depends on how much and how hard you exercise, how much you move between workouts, your age, your body size and composition, your dieting history, thyroid function, etc. BUT, there is one common set of rules for EVERYONE: If you take in less energy (calories) than your body requires for fuel, you will lose body fat. If you are not losing body fat, you are not in an energy deficit for YOUR body. That may mean you're not losing weight on 1500 calories a day, but your friend is losing on 2000 calories a day. Super frustrating, right? But the same principles apply. Their body simply requires more calories to function on a day-to-day basis than yours does. (If we knew for sure that the calorie tracking was accurate - which it's nearly always not. But that's a different story).



What about the people that tell you you're gaining weight because you're UNDEReating? Not true. It's nice to think about, but it's simply not true.



Now, can you get yourself up to the point where your body does burn more calories everyday so you can maintain or lose more body fat while eating more calories? YES! That's a process called reverse dieting and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about that.



But let's stick to the science here, ok? Losing body fat requires an energy deficit so that your body is required to make up the additional calories it needs by taking it off of your stored body fat. Your stored body fat contains calories / energy... just like your food! If you want to decrease body fat, you need to use it up. That's how it 'goes away'.



I got into this even more in last week's live video. Check it out here.



Here is some more information about my online coaching program - including cost and before / after pictures.



And if you'd like to chat to see if we're the right fit to work together, schedule a call here! Looking forward to hearing about your goals so we can devise a plan for how you can CRUSH THEM. ;-)



Hope your week is off to a great start.



XO,
Tara