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Nutrition Fasted Training & Carbs

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thegoldengod

thegoldengod

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For those who practice fasted training, typically what does your carb macro breakdown look like?

I am a new parent, and train before 6AM so I can get my workout in before the day starts. This means I train fasted. I just drink some water and go. Sometimes I'll have a coffee and go, but that is rare.

I tend to keep my carbs under 100g/day, and I'm able to get through workouts like S&S, More Kettlebell Muscle complexes, Dry Fighting Weight etc.

I do find myself sore on days, which I attribute to lack of carbs (I'm just guessing). I try to follow the periodization in all of the programs I do.

I am experimenting with more carbs etc. but wanted to see what the community is doing in terms of fasted training & carbs?
 
I trained s&s fasted in the morning for about a year. I never felt any difference between training fasted or not to be honest. I do eat tons of carbs. Have you felt any difference between training fasted or not?
 
Fasted training when doing 5/3/1 a few years ago was tough at times, but I adapted. Now all of my training is fasted. I don't track macros but I eat high carb - probably 50% of total cal intake?
 
I train fasted and usually eat anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours later. Just to muddy the waters real good, I eat maybe 5-10 grams of carbs per day, in the evening, in the form of cheese or yogurt. I eat enough protein that my body can just make carbohydrate if I need it. Took a little bit of adaptation, but works pretty well now. High-carb, low-carb, or somewhere in between, if you're feeling under-fueled, you might just be under-fed. Depending on what your macros look like, you could probably add more carbs, fat, or protein.
 
Congrats on the new baby!

I don’t know that carbs are super relevant to fasted training. I typically training fasted by 16-20hrs, only eating once per day. Macros vary, though I prefer less carbs.

Through the various breakdowns of macros I’ve done, I’ve never tied soreness to lack of carbs. Could be just not eating enough in general, or not sleeping enough.

I think it’s helpful to NOT have my eating specifically tied to training. I usually eat only once per day. I may eat that before training, after training....I may train at 9am and not eat until dinner. It really doesn’t make much difference at all.
 
I think there came out some new studies about training and carb intake afterwards) according to T levels/ cortisol.
I digged deeperinto that because training (fasted) has quite an impact on hormones - a topic which I am interested in from a female point of view.
Training fasted usually makes me more hungry after training and depending on what I do, I need some food before working out.
Swimming fasted (only decaf coffee before) is okay.
Bouldering fasted sucks.
Swings can be done fasted but I feel a bit more powerful after eating sth.
And in general working out fasted in the morning (early) is not my preference.
 
I really don't see much difference in training fasted or not. Now... that being said if I am doing some lengthy training event (3 - 12+ hrs) then I certainly do not go into that in a fasted state, plus I would feed along the way.

However... back in the day...
We used to experiment with 'depletion days'. This is where we would do multi-hour, multi-discipline training on water and electrolytes only. Go in fasted and stay fasted throughout. It may have fostered some mental toughness, but performance suffered, and I'm not so sure it was very healthy.

For those interested a typical training day of this type looked something like:
  • 2-3 hour ride
  • Calisthenics / KB Circuits, mixed with some parkour mov nat style training
  • 2-3 hours in the climbing gym
  • Repeat the Calisthenics / KB / mov nat stuff
  • 1 hour run
  • 30 min heavy ruck
Again... only water and electrolytes...

We would maybe do 1 or 2 of these a season
 
Neuro-Bob said:
Through the various breakdowns of macros I’ve done, I’ve never tied soreness to lack of carbs. Could be just not eating enough in general, or not sleeping enough.
Click to expand...

You're probably right. I'm 5'11, 33 years old, 175lb. Sedentary desk job. I eat about 2300-2500 calories per day. I used to track it, but thats roughly the range.

Regimen is daily S&S 24kg, or KBM 16kgx2 3x/week depending on the program
 
Snowman said:
I train fasted and usually eat anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours later. Just to muddy the waters real good, I eat maybe 5-10 grams of carbs per day, in the evening, in the form of cheese or yogurt. I eat enough protein that my body can just make carbohydrate if I need it. Took a little bit of adaptation, but works pretty well now. High-carb, low-carb, or somewhere in between, if you're feeling under-fueled, you might just be under-fed. Depending on what your macros look like, you could probably add more carbs, fat, or protein.
Click to expand...
Curious to hear more about more protein turning into carbs if the body needs it?
 
Sean M said:
Curious to hear more about more protein turning into carbs if the body needs it?
Click to expand...

There are calories in both protein and carbohydrate (they're both approximately 4 calories per gram) so your body can use protein as an energy source similarly to carbohydrate but, as far as I'm aware, proteins cannot be converted into carbohydrates nor carbohydrates into proteins.
 
Sean M said:
Curious to hear more about more protein turning into carbs if the body needs it?
Click to expand...
I guess a more accurate way to say this is that protein can be turned into glucose, which can be stored for when the body needs it. I shouldn't give the impression that it's an on-demand process.
It's called gluconeogenesis (say that five times fast), and it's the process where certain amino acids (and to a lesser extent, certain parts of triglycerides) are converted into glucose. Most amino acids are a combination of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. If you remove the nitrogen, you can use the rest of it to make a glucose molecule. When you consume excess protein, your body can convert some of it to glucose. This glucose then goes into the bloodstream, and if there's already enough blood glucose, it then gets pulled out of the bloodstream and turned into glycogen or fat. The nice thing (in my opinion) is that the process of gluconeogenesis puts glucose into your blood in a much slower, more controlled manner than if you just eat carbohydrate, which makes it a lot easier on your body. I have a sneaking suspicion that I roasted my body's glucose metabolism when I was younger, so for me that seems to work a lot better.
There are some serious issues that can happen in extreme circumstances where you eat almost exclusively protein (just Google "rabbit starvation"), but the long and short of it is that, as long as protein doesn't exceed about 50% of your calories, there's very little risk of any complications. For reference, ground beef that is 20% fat by weight is about 70% fat and 30% protein by calories. I would put my own protein intake as somewhere between 25-35% of total calories each day, but that's more educated guess than calculation.
The point is that I eat enough protein that my body can keep my glycogen stores topped off without much trouble, so I don't run into any fueling issues when I'm training, regardless of time of day or time since last meal.
I'm not saying that people should start eating tons of meat, I'm just pointing out that our bodies are pretty darn flexible. The most efficient fueling strategy is the one your body is adapted to. If you want to use a different fueling strategy, it's just a matter of taking the time to let your body adapt to it.
 
Snowman said:
I guess a more accurate way to say this is that protein can be turned into glucose, which can be stored for when the body needs it. I shouldn't give the impression that it's an on-demand process.
It's called gluconeogenesis (say that five times fast), and it's the process where certain amino acids (and to a lesser extent, certain parts of triglycerides) are converted into glucose. Most amino acids are a combination of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. If you remove the nitrogen, you can use the rest of it to make a glucose molecule. When you consume excess protein, your body can convert some of it to glucose. This glucose then goes into the bloodstream, and if there's already enough blood glucose, it then gets pulled out of the bloodstream and turned into glycogen or fat. The nice thing (in my opinion) is that the process of gluconeogenesis puts glucose into your blood in a much slower, more controlled manner than if you just eat carbohydrate, which makes it a lot easier on your body. I have a sneaking suspicion that I roasted my body's glucose metabolism when I was younger, so for me that seems to work a lot better.
There are some serious issues that can happen in extreme circumstances where you eat almost exclusively protein (just Google "rabbit starvation"), but the long and short of it is that, as long as protein doesn't exceed about 50% of your calories, there's very little risk of any complications. For reference, ground beef that is 20% fat by weight is about 70% fat and 30% protein by calories. I would put my own protein intake as somewhere between 25-35% of total calories each day, but that's more educated guess than calculation.
The point is that I eat enough protein that my body can keep my glycogen stores topped off without much trouble, so I don't run into any fueling issues when I'm training, regardless of time of day or time since last meal.
I'm not saying that people should start eating tons of meat, I'm just pointing out that our bodies are pretty darn flexible. The most efficient fueling strategy is the one your body is adapted to. If you want to use a different fueling strategy, it's just a matter of taking the time to let your body adapt to it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the thorough explanation. The body is indeed a magnificent thing.
 
The body uses the right fuel for the job most of the time. Carbs are only really necessary for fueling certain training methods and performance levels. I find my performance of higher intensity (zone 4+) is reduced when in ketosis but not necessarily fasted; it depends on the length. If not in ketosis, my body will store plenty of carbohydrates for about 45min of high intensity effort. I mostly only use carbs for:
  1. before a physical test/race
  2. after intense training
 
offwidth said:
I really don't see much difference in training fasted or not. Now... that being said if I am doing some lengthy training event (3 - 12+ hrs) then I certainly do not go into that in a fasted state, plus I would feed along the way.

However... back in the day...
We used to experiment with 'depletion days'. This is where we would do multi-hour, multi-discipline training on water and electrolytes only. Go in fasted and stay fasted throughout. It may have fostered some mental toughness, but performance suffered, and I'm not so sure it was very healthy.

For those interested a typical training day of this type looked something like:
  • 2-3 hour ride
  • Calisthenics / KB Circuits, mixed with some parkour mov nat style training
  • 2-3 hours in the climbing gym
  • Repeat the Calisthenics / KB / mov nat stuff
  • 1 hour run
  • 30 min heavy ruck
Again... only water and electrolytes...

We would maybe do 1 or 2 of these a season
Click to expand...
What was the context of depletion days? I’m not sure I picked up from other posts any sort of military or assassain experience in your background. Was this just a group of alpinists trying to get better at alpining?

Or perhaps the years spent mastering the sword were part of something more nefarious....
 
I train fasted almost always (never been a big breakfast person and I generally train first thing in the morning). I've never noticed a difference relating to carbs.
 
I always train in an undereating-phase i.e. completely fasted or some fruit before training.
Normally I go 14-20h/day without food and train within that tume frame.
Never noticed a difference in performance.
100g carbs per day seems pretty low. Where are your calories coming from?
 
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