Ask a Trainer
Two elite 24 Hour Fitness Trainers tackle your most burning in-the-gym questions.
I work out in the evening, and I've heard I should eat dinner before I go
to the gym. Is that right? I would think it would be better to wait until
I've burned calories.
-- —Abby Turner, St. Louis
Ideally, you'd want to eat an hour to an hour-and-a-half before your workout, so you can maximize your blood-sugar levels, and optimize your performance. It's kind of a myth that working out on an empty stomach burns more fat.
Actually, I would say to this person, you don't have to eat dinner, but you should eat something an hour or so before. It should be a balanced snack. It shouldn't be more than 300 calories, and if you're a woman, it can be as little as 100 to 150 calories. If you're just doing cardio, it can be as light as fruit and cottage cheese. If you're doing weights and cardio, you'll want something more like tuna or chicken breast, with some carrots and celery, or another vegetable, for carbohdyrates. But a full meal might be a little heavy to work out.
Actually, it's true that you do burn infinitessimally more fat with an empty stomach, but you burn fewer calories [italics], because your performance will be lower when you haven't got any fuel in your system. But I have to say, yeah, you'll perform your best an hour-and-a-half after eating, but what if you're working out at 4 in the morning? You're not going to get up at 2:30 a.m. to eat. The battle that we're fighting as fitness professionals is just getting people in. Truth be told, we're splitting hairs when we're talking about timing meals. If you're trying to time a meal and that disables your workout, it's much better just to go work out.
Meet the Experts
Two trainers, both with impeccable credentials but very different styles.
Brandy Bachmeyer, 28, a former Olympic weightlifter, is a rare amalgam of brains, brawn, and perkiness. Sort of like a cross between MacGyver and a local TV weatherperson. In a good way. An elite trainer at San Ramon Supersport Club in California, Brandy regularly puts in 12-hour days, sometimes joining them as they train for half-marathons—even surveying the contents of their sub-Zeros.
Scott Nunes, a trainer at the 24 Hour Fitness in Escondido, California knows firsthand that getting fit doesn’t just happen. “I used to be a bona fide couch potato,” Nunes avows. When Nunes was in his mid 20s, he had back surgery, developed arthritis, and found himself weighing in at 260 pounds: “When my one-and-a-half-year-old son raced me to the top of the stairs and beat me, I started doing pushups and sit ups that day,” he recalls. Nunes, 37, got in great shape, which helped him raise his son, who’s now 14.
COMBINED WISDOM Snack, hit the gym, then have a light dinner—but make your workout the main course. Taking in 150-300 calories within 30 minutes of finishing a workout is a key "window" to maximizing results.
