Should I eat before I work-out?
It’s quite a common question and some books and websites encourage people to exercise before eating breakfast with the reasoning that their bodies will find the fuel needed from fat stores and so encourage toning and weightloss.
The problem with this is that the fat within cells is not a readily available fuel. If no food has been eaten plasma glucose is rapidly used up and the body then moves to its secondary fuel source, glycogen, stored in the liver and muscles. The process of coverting triclycerides from fat takes longer.
There’s strong opinion on both sides about going for a morning walk or easy run before eating because, basically, as long as you take it slowly you might be okay but when it comes to resistance exercise and vibration training there’s no argument about it –
You Must Eat before your session!
Vibration Training causes you to burn up loads of energy within each 60 second position on the machine. Muscle contraction of this magnitude, using 100% of muscle fibres, needs fuel and it’s all too easy to become hypoglycaemic in an instant at any time during the program. Some people feel a little dizzy or nauseous, others cope with the program with no apparent difficulty and then having thoroughly depleted their body’s supply of blood glucose symptoms hit them hard and fast with insufficient oxygen reaching the brain and they pass out.
This morning my first two customers at 6.30am were mother and son. For the son on his fourth session he knew the rules – eat before coming in – but he hadn’t conveyed this to his mother and I made the mistake of forgetting to ask.
The mother was healthy and strong and had no trouble working through the program until she dropped straight into hypoglycaemia and fainted. Even the sports drink I had on hand was insufficient to stop the brain fog she continued to experience afterwards.
It’s my responsibility as an instructor to ensure customers have eaten adequately before their session and today I failed in this – a lesson I hope I have now learnt well!
