I have survived only by eating cheese and as the saying goes you are what you eat that old saying is especially true when it comes to your pre and your post-conditioning meals what you eat before and after your conditioning will have a big impact on how well you perform at the gym how quickly recover and the results that you'll see in the mirror regardless of whether you're trying to build muscle or burn fat you'll be at a disadvantage if you completely ignore your pre and post conditioning nutrition while many nutrient timing principles have been debunked what you eat around your conditioning continues to remain important because nailing down your pre and post-conditioning meals can help speed up your progress more than any other meal you eat throughout the rest of the day so let's start first with pre conditioning when we work out muscle protein
breakdown rates will shoot up whether your goal is to bulk up and build muscle or burn fat while preserving muscle you're gonna want to do your best to keep protein breakdown rates lower and protein synthesis rates higher since amino acids are the building blocks to your muscles they're absolutely
essential for increasing muscle protein synthesis without those amino acids circulating throughout your bloodstream not only are you missing the fuel necessary for the synthesis process but your protein breakdown rates will stay elevated putting you into more of a catabolic mode where your body is breaking down muscle which we obviously don't want now some studies show that having protein before your conditioning won't enhance muscle growth meanwhile other studies show the exact opposite having pre-conditioning amino acids and carbs can even provide more benefits for your muscles than having them post-conditioning and the reason why these studies show two completely different results is because it depends on what you already ate throughout the rest of the day if you've already had a meal with enough protein a couple hours before your conditioning taking in even more amino acids with something like a protein shake right before your conditioning that won't really make much of a difference in decreasing muscle breakdown rates during your conditioning on the other hand if you haven't had any protein within three to four hours before your conditioning it's a good idea to eat twenty to forty grams of protein to get some amino acids into your blue
stream you can do this by eating a regular meal if you have about an hour or two to digest it before your conditioning chicken breast eggs turkey and fish are a couple good sources of protein that you could have but if you conditioning first thing in the morning right after waking up you can have a protein shake instead since it'll digest a lot faster while there may be some debate about protein there isn't much debate about
pre-conditioning carbohydrates your body uses the glucose from carbohydrates to fuel your conditioning