Quick Question on when to eat

dv6

Hi all, im sure if i searched through old threads this has come up before but i havent time at the minute. At the moment the only chance i get to go to the gym is at 8 in the evening. My current routine is to get home from work about 6, eat dinner and then head out to gym at 8.
i am trying to lose fat, who isnt, so was wondering should i eat something after i get home about 10pm. I do a mix of cardio and weights in a session and was told i should be eating after a workout but honestly i dont have an appetite and cant see how eating something at that time of night can help me achieve my goal, ie fat loss.

Thoughts?

g'em

If it was me, a medium sized moderate carb & protein meal before the gym and a small-moderate protein based meal after the gym would be the order of the day.

Carbs pre-gym will provide provide energy; protein PWO provide muscle-building nutrition.

Some people like carbs post-workout too, but given that fat-loss is your primary goal, there's no need for them.

Edit: for exqample: a sandwich, a bowl of porridge with fruit, or a small servings of meat/ veg and pasta before the gym. and for afters? If you find your appetite too low for proper food a whey shake could come in handy, otherwise meat and veg or tuna and pineapple (nods @ Dragan).

An Citeog

Protein and simple carbs. Try eating a banana or 2 and a tin of tuna or scrambled eggs, just to give you an energy boost and help your body to recover. I also find that eating a big meal a couple of hours before going to the gym saps my energy and leaves me feeling slightly bloated. Maybe try eating something small at 6 and then having a smaller dinner about an hour after your workout.

dv6

thanks for the updates, I dont really eat that much in the evening anyway to ever feel bloated before gym, i usually make a stew or chilli early in the week that does me a couple days and have a bowl of that about 6.
After i woudnt have the appetite for a meal, though if i thought it would be better for me i could eat a tin of fish or something as suggested.

cavanmaniac

g'em wrote: »

If it was me, a medium sized moderate carb & protein meal before the gym and a small-moderate protein based meal after the gym would be the order of the day.

Carbs pre-gym will provide provide energy; protein PWO provide muscle-building nutrition.

Some people like carbs post-workout too, but given that fat-loss is your primary goal, there's no need for them.

Interesting. I work out about 7-9oclock evenings and always try to steer clear of carbs during the day, except for my porridge breakfast and whatever veg I get throughout the day, (and maybe a brown bread sambo at 4.30, never any carbs later than that), but then have a medium amount of carbs with protein as my post workout meal (have a banana and a shake with me in locker as well, eat the meal about 45 mins later). I'm trying to lose bodyfat, do you think I've got this arse about face? And would white pasta/rice be a better option post-gym than brown if you would advise any at all?

bob04

You wanna loose weight???

Eat more regular then

try to eat every 2-3 hours.

Low carb, high protein meals apart from Complex carbs before and after training

Some sort of slow release protien before bed

do you do weights to loose weight or gain muscle?

Plenty of fresh fruit, veggies, nuts, water etc throughout the day

cavanmaniac

Cheers Bob, thanks to the good and helpful folks on here, I'm pretty down with the whole 6 meals thing and eat lots of protein, get an amount of good fats in every day and am slowly getting into veg as well etc.

I'm specifically interested in g'em's carb-timing theory above though. By complex, you mean low GI carbs like brown pasta, spag and rice, yes? Is there any time when white pasta/rice is actually beneficial?

g'em

cavanmaniac wrote: »

I'm trying to lose bodyfat, do you think I've got this arse about face?

lol, no you haven't gone arse about face at all!! Put it this way, is it working so far? If yes then there's nothing arsey about it at all I'm constantly chopping and changing my plan of attach for fat loss, but what I posted above is like my "baseline" strategy. Sometimes I find that carbs pre-workout help give me energy, other times I need the carbs post-workout if it's been particularly heavy and I want to minimise recovery times.

cavanmaniac wrote: »

By complex, you mean low GI carbs like brown pasta, spag and rice, yes? Is there any time when white pasta/rice is actually beneficial?

Exactly. Straight after a workout is one of the times you can afford to eat a bit outside the norm, so you could get away with the white rice/ pasta no problem. There's no real nutritional benefit to white products, essentailly they've been stripped of fibre and mushed up a lot, whereas real wholemeal, wholegrain and unprocessed foods are jammed with vitamins, minerals and fibre.

Why not just get into the habit of sticking to wholemeal and wholegrains all the time and avoid the white? Oh, and a note of caution - check the labels of brown breads, unless it says "wholemeal" it may just be white bread dyed with caramel colour

rubadub

g'em wrote: »

a note of caution - check the labels of brown breads, unless it says "wholemeal" it may just be white bread dyed with caramel colour

And some can have wholemeal in the ingredients but it can also have a fair bit of normal white flour too. White flour is usually listed as "wheat flour".

Ingredients on packs are listed in order of greatest. If wheat flour is listed way down the list it will mean it is a small % of the ingredients. In a large bakery I expect a lot of yeast is cultivated in "starter cultures", many of these could be using wheat flour to start them, and they will use this yeast in all breads. So for this reason you could well see wheat flour listed on decent brown bread. But it is only trace amounts in it.

cavanmaniac

g'em wrote: »

lol, no you haven't gone arse about face at all!! Put it this way, is it working so far? If yes then there's nothing arsey about it at all I'm constantly chopping and changing my plan of attach for fat loss, but what I posted above is like my "baseline" strategy. Sometimes I find that carbs pre-workout help give me energy, other times I need the carbs post-workout if it's been particularly heavy and I want to minimise recovery times.

Why not just get into the habit of sticking to wholemeal and wholegrains all the time and avoid the white? Oh, and a note of caution - check the labels of brown breads, unless it says "wholemeal" it may just be white bread dyed with caramel colour

I'm not totally sure if it's working yet. I look quite trim and slim, even somewhat developed across the shoulders and chest, but as soon as the shirt comes off it's apparent I've still got a dreadful belly and soft enough chest too. And that's not me being guilty of seeing my own body in a worse light than it is, that's a honest assessment.
Recently I've seen some weight loss off my face (great...) so I'm going to give it another while with the current carbs post-gym regime to see if it starts shifting off the belly, I know that it can be the last place it starts to go which'd be just my luck.

And I always went for the wholemeal versions of everything to be on the safe side, but thanks for letting me know to be sure.

Cheers all.