So, in this post, I want to focus on the idea of “meal timing”. A lot of newbies to the fitness community, ask me a lot of questions on when to eat what, and if this should be eaten before or after training, or if they should eat carbohydrates after 6 pm, etc. All of those aforementioned things, will be focused on individually in time, but the important thing is that this list of questions in regards to this whole concept of “meal timing”, can be never ending. Aside from that, the question is warranted because a lot of supplement companies or even supplement store clerks, will advise their customers to consume their product a certain amount of minutes after their workout. The way it’s also brought across, it makes the newcomer to the fitness community a little anxious if they do not consume this meal or supplement, within the time it recommends on the product.
I am not going to talk specifically on what should be consume when, but I am going to speak more on why this whole meal timing nonsense, in general, is highly overrated.
It is only in our modern times, that we as humans have a chance to consume a meal, nearly anytime we want. All you have to do is look around you and you will see tons of fast food restaurants, or places to purchase foods readily available for your picking. We have the luxury now to get up and go into our fridge and make a meal without having to be delayed by anything other than the preparation time to create that meal. Yet, we don’t understand that this is a modern phenomenon and isn’t something that is linked to us biologically. I am not going to get into the nitty gritty aspect of the biological reasons for what I am about to talk about, but rather just provide you with an understanding on why I chose to speak on this and provide you information on why this whole meal timing thing is nonsense.
We as humans, developed from our hunters and gatherers who had to fight for their food and would have to go hours or even days, before they could consume something of substance. You would think, if our ancestors could survive such a long time without eating meals, while hunting and doing more activities requiring endurance and physical activity, that we as humans were designed in a manner to survive such a feat.
Now, I am not saying that you have to go on a hunger strike and starve yourself if you want to lose body fat, but that rather your body can handle more than you think it can. So consuming that shake, meal, or whatever it may be, doesn’t have to be done in a 30-60 minute window. In fact, recent studies have shown that it’s about at least 24 hours before consumption of nutrients is actually needed in regards to protein synthesis (building of the muscles), and lets face it, that’s the main reason you’re on this website reading this article and I am hitting the gym 3 times for the week for 2 hours during those sessions; to build some fucking muscle! 🙂
So that’s basically it. Although there are research to show optimum timing periods for certain macro-nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and fats), in the overall perspective of things, it isn’t necessary and it’s highly overrated. That information doesn’t really push you beyond the rest when it comes to acquiring your fitness goals quicker, but may be more specific to high endurance athletes, who although this may be more important than the average gym goer, is still highly overrated. Best way to see this, is to go into the cafeteria of a university and ask the jocks, if they follow the concept of “meal timing” and 100% of the time, they would laugh in your face and say NO!
Alright so that’s it. Keep an eye out for post updates, that will talk about those aforementioned meal timing, and how they specifically don’t really matter but if you were interested in trying it out, you’d have that information to help guide you.