final word on pre/post food/protein shake intake with cardio

[Harpoon]

assuming you're going for the magical "gain muscle, lose belly" formula and you do cardio on your non-weight days... wanting to break down fatty acids and not amino acid

1. Is it good to train fasted? Ie. because of work or classes you have not eaten for 4 hours, should you go straight to the cardio, or a) eat something first and wait 1-2 hours or b) take a protein shake and wait half an hour?

2. Should you supplement with protein shakes after cardio to try and limit some of your amino acid breakdown? (probably not as effective as supplementing before cardio because from what I understand aerobic exercise doesn't have much "after burn" calorie effect...)

[Ironman]

There are four ways to gain and loose and the same time. One is being in your first year of training. The other three are trenbolone, oxandrolone, and methylhydroxynandrolone. That's it. You keep your protein intake up and that will prevent muscle loss while you are loosing fat.

I have heard that fasted cardio is better. You don't need protein when just doing cardio. You just need it before and after weights. You should eat something before weights.

[Harpoon]

lol @ at ways 2-4
ok thanks

[stuward]

He's exagerating. You can approximate "simultaneous" by timing your nutrients. Stay low carb during the week and carb up on the weekends. Protein is essential all the time but post workout is very important. Keeping muscles glycogen low will encourage fat burning so working fasted can help in that regard. The weekly refeeds will ramp up you metabolism and jump start your muscle building for the week.

Remember that there are 4 types of exercise that are relatevant for fat loss:

1. Strength training: Builds muscle which helps in burning fat. Also burns calories long after the exercise is over. This is your priority. If you're not doing this, no other exercise matters.

2. High Intensity Interval Training: The only type of cardio that is proven to make a difference in any category that matters. You need to have a reasonable level of fitness to do this but my 80 year old mother does it (she walks 100 paces uphill, takes a break and goes again.)

3. Tradition medium intensity cardio: Basically useless. Increases cortisol, reduces recovery ability, can decrease cardio and lung capacity and increase mortality. increases appetitie and is a very ineffecient way to achieve fat loss. (about 70 hours/lb fat)

4. Relaxing low level activity: Helpful in many subtle ways. Reduces cortosol which can improve abdominal fat.

[Harpoon]

any studies? i'm looking on pubmed and finding a lot on the effectiveness of HIIT in weight loss, hemodynamic parameters, etc... but nothing comparing HIIT to moderate intensity cardio, let alone saying that the former is useless..

[Harpoon]

there we go
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18197184

[DavidMcF]

asking about keeping fat low while bulking...

what if you maintain a pretty low carb diet i.e. one maybe two carb meals a day
will that keep the fat down? Or will it just reduce the effectiveness of your bulk?

[Harpoon]

well I'm following the TNT diet now (the strictest one for most fat loss), and the second-most strict one has you eating carbs after training, and one cheat meal during the week. The rest of the time its just protein/fat/veggies. They say this will let you gain muscle, while losing fat on the non-weight lifting days by manipulating insulin.

Of course, the fastest way bulk, and I think most people would agree here, is pasta, cola and ice cream. Like rippetoe said "And folks, for weight-gaining purposes, "eating clean" is not a useful concept. Big Macs are."

[Jungledoc]

What's a TNT diet?

[Harpoon]

Kenny Croxdale recommended it on this board... heres a good description
http://forums.menshealth.com/eve/forums ... 1431038013