If your body holds onto fat in certain areas and it seems like no matter what you do you can’t seem to lose it, then you are in the right place.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way and I’m certain those mistakes have cost me a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of heartache.

In the beginning I saw results quite quickly by doing some simple things like cutting out added sugars and greasy foods. But as my results started to slow down, I had to start educating myself.

I had my head down in theory and books by night, and my backside into the gym with a personal trainer by day, but I didn’t get the results I was after until I got really clear about how my messed up hormones were affecting my body shape.

I learnt that there are 3 reasons why most people struggle to achieve their health goals:

1. They don’t understand how fat is burned and therefore don’t create the right environment for fat burning (this is what I’ll be addressing today).

2. They don’t fix the root cause of their weight problem by addressing their messed up hormones.

3. They’re sick and tired of failing so they simply stop trying (ironically the reason they keep failing is because of the first 2 reasons).

I’ve made it my mission to help people with these very problems.

In todays article you’ll learn how much to eat and when to eat for the exercise. Understand this and you’ll lose more fat. So here we go:

The first part of eating right for your exercise starts way before your exercise even begins. You see your body has 2 main fuel sources: Fat and sugar.

You want it to use fat for fuel but your body wants to run off sugar. It prefers it so much that it has 2 back up tanks of it, which it stores in your muscles and your liver.

If you want to access stored fat you must first use up stored your sugar. In other words you must empty your tank. Think of your muscles like the fuel tank in your car. If you start with a full tank you’d have to drive much longer for your tank to reach empty. The same is true for you. You’d have to exercise for longer to empty your tank, which you probably won’t do and so therefore you probably won’t lose fat. 

So to eat right for your exercise, start your exercise session with a half tank and you won’t need to exercise as long before allowing your body to access fat as fuel.

To do that, you’ve got to manage your carbohydrate intake. I wrote a whole article on this topic called How Fat Is Burned where I give you a play by play on how to manage carbohydrates.

The second part to eating right for your exercise has to do with what to eat around your exercise and the rules for this are very simple:

1. DO NOT eat anything that spikes your blood sugar before, during or after exercise or it will cancel fat burning effects (if you’re unsure what will spike your blood sugar and what won’t then check out How Fat Is Burned)

2. It’s ok to do aerobic exercise on an empty stomach but DO NOT go into an anaerobic exercise session hungry.

3. And make sure you eat within 30 minutes, maximum 1 hour, after exercise, or your blood sugar levels will drop too low.

I often get questions with point number 2 around the different types of exercise so let me explain. Depending on the type of exercise you do will depend on the type of fuel your body will require to perform that exercise.

If you do 20-30 minutes of aerobic (cardio) exercise, you will burn through the remaining sugar stores in your muscles. Then you will allow your body to access fat as fuel in real time.

But, if you do anaerobic exercise it will always requires sugar to burn due to the high intensity nature of the exercise. So if you continue exercising anaerobically beyond 45 minutes your body will start breaking down muscle tissue to use as sugar.

Please don’t do this. You create an environment of overtraining and a lot of fat storing hormones.   

If you want to understand more on the topic of overtraining I did a video blog called ARE YOU SABOTAGING YOUR WEIGHT LOSS BY OVER EXERCISING?

So in conclusion, eating right for your exercise happens in 2 parts:

1. Manage your carbohydrate intake so you go into your exercise sessions with a half depleted tank,

2. Eat right immediately before, during and after exercise.

If you found that useful then you’ll love my free webinar training. I go in-depth into all 9 conditions that make up the perfect fat burning environment, I breakdown exactly what to eat and when for your specific hormone imbalance and I give you 2 ninja mindset strategies so you’l have the confidence you need to break through and achieve lasting results.  

For more details and to register for the training click here.

Tarryn Thompson