Diet Plans

Eating and Exercising as Part of your Diet Plan

A lot of Americans assume that you if you eat before you exercise, your body will function more properly and keep its mechanic functions running properly. If you are following a strict diet plan, you need to know a few things about eating and exercising. If you think that your body gets some sort of instant energy from eating before exercising, you are completely wrong, which can be misleading and counter productive. If you are looking for energy, you must first allow your food to fully digest before it takes effect. One of the major stereotypes for eating before you exercise is that your metabolism increases as you exercise and that your increased metabolism will burn the foods in your system. This logic is flawed in the fact that if your metabolism speeds itself up it only affects the foods that your body intakes after you speed up the metabolism. When your energy is up, the food you intake is processed in a faster manner so it only makes sense that you eat after you exercise.

Although on the surface, ingesting a big meal of carbohydrates and proteins before you exercise might be appealing on the surface, but in the human body these foods can take a while before they begin to release the fast energy. A short answer to all of these to maximize your diet plan is to simply not eat before you exercise. Instead, you should always try to eat something immediately after you exercise. It is ironic that the same meal that you could eat before you exercise that would be counter productive is beneficial if you eat it after exercising. There have been many studies that have shown the benefits of eating after exercising. Some of these effects include increased energy, increased metabolism, and decreased appetite. The decreased appetite comes from the body’s natural tendency for fluids while you are exercising which then takes up room in your system where less food can then go. Although our bodies are trained to be machine like in their day to day functions, it does not act like a machine. Timing with the human body is one of the most important which is where the statement that what really matters when you eat more than anything.

There are times where you can apply pre-exercise meals to your normal diet plan. This can be done without the typical effects (metabolic stress and an elevated level of cortisol). If you do eat before you exercise you should make sure that you eat a small meal of food consisting of a small amount of carbs that are available in light foods. This can come from sources such as whey protein, eggs, yogurt, or low acidic fruits. You should take into account that your protein intake is greater in pre-exercise diet plans than in post exercise meals.