Food for Fitness

Exercising on an empty stomach makes you lose weight faster
Exercising on an empty stomach – such as first thing in the morning – may force your body to burn more fat than carbohydrate for fuel, but it won’t necessarily help you lose weight faster.

So, how much carbohydrate should you eat? There are no hard and fast rules – it’s essentially a matter of minimising sugars and processed starches, and replacing them with foods rich in protein and healthy fats. These foods reduce appetite, promote satiety, and cause an automatic restriction in calories (making calorie counting unnecessary in many cases). Protein also spares muscle, so you should be able to maintain your hard-earned muscle while losing fat.

you do high-intensity endurance training, then you’ll certainly need carbohydrate immediately before and after training as you can’t fuel intense exercise (more than 70 per cent of maximal aerobic capacity) from fat alone.

Reducing carbohydrate not only lowers your calorie intake, but it also lowers your insulin levels, which puts your body in fat-burning mode rather than fat-storage mode. The job of insulin is to transport glucose and fatty acids from the blood into cells. When insulin levels are high (e.g. after eating a high-carbohydrate meal), the body stops burning fat and burns carbohydrate instead. It also makes the body store excess carbohydrate (as glycogen or fat) and fat. By reducing your carbohydrate intake, you will lower blood glucose levels and insulin production, which means less fat storage and more fat burning. In other words, the body will turn to fat (not carbohydrate) for fuel.

Training at high intensities with low glycogen levels may result in fatigue, lethargy and poor performance. Over time, eating too little carbohydrate may lead to overtraining, where your performance drops and your health suffers.

The key to fat loss is to adjust your carbohydrate intake. This doesn’t mean cutting carbohydrate completely or forgoing pasta and potatoes, but reducing carbohydrate to a level that gives you just enough fuel for your training, but not too little to cause fatigue or illness

fact, reduced- and low-fat foods may actually make you gain weight as their high sugar content triggers insulin release, which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells to be converted into fat (once glycogen stores are full). They fail to satisfy your appetite and reduce levels of dopamine (a feel-good hormone) in the brain and can cause overeating.

Avoid high-sugar foods and drinks, and any processed foods labelled ‘low fat’, ‘reduced fat’ or ‘fat-free’. These fat-reduced foods are often higher in sugar, starch or salt than the full-fat versions to make up for the flavour and texture that’s lost when food manufacturers take out the fat.

Real food is filling, satiating and delicious. When you focus on eating these foods you will feel less hungry, and have less desire to eat ‘junk’ food. Eating real food limits the amount you eat without needing much restraint.

Some people are predisposed to gain weight easily and must work harder than the average person to burn it off. But one thing is certain: that losing fat requires a sustained daily effort.