Should you eat before you workout? ⠀

Should you eat before you workout? 

The short answer: In most cases, yes. 

The long answer: There are a lot of dependent variables such as:

 -Your planned workout intensity 

-Workout duration -Time of your workout 

-If it's been longer than 2-3 hours since your last meal 

-If you are working out hard to try and make changes to your body to name just a few. ⠀ 

No matter your goal, even if it's weight loss/fat loss, having a balanced meal of quality protein, quality carbohydrates and healthy fats 1-3 hours before your workout has been shown to: 

-Boost performance 

-Allow you to workout harder 

-Reduce muscle breakdown/preserve muscle 

-Reduce soreness after a workout 

-Speed recovery ⠀

 The notion that when you workout in a fasted state you'll burn and lose more fat is somewhat flawed, and the few studies on the subject show mixed results at best. Ultimately, if your goal is weight/fat loss, the biggest determining factor is that you remain in a calorie deficit regardless if you train on an empty stomach or not. 

Everyone is different, and what works well for someone might not be very effective for someone else. In my personal opinion/experience, I always perform and feel better with something good in the tank before a workout. I consider Pre and post workout meals the two most important meals of the day. ⠀ ⠀ 
https://www.instagram.com/p/CHdOhz0HsBr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Trying to lose weight... what should I do, Cardio or weights?

I get this question a lot and the answer simply is both are great for burning calories and losing weight - to a certain degree that is... Just remember one important thing, the benefits and results you'll get from each form of exercise is greatly dependent on how hard you're working! You can't just expect to find something that's easy to do and yet it burns calories like crazy it doesn't work that way; remember nothing comes easy in any aspect of life so neither is a healthier, better looking you!

Now resistance training of any form (bands, cables, weights, calisthenics) is said to burn up to 2 times the amount of calories as just regular steady state cardio. Now this can be true, but it's not going to be true if you're taking your sweet time in between sets, not using enough weight, not doing enough reps, and most importantly not pushing yourself to your limits. In that case the person doing cardio on the treadmill lets say will be burning more calories than you. As for cardio though you can easily burn 100's of calories in short amount of time, but you're not going to do it walking 3.5 mph with a 4 incline, if you're going to do that you're wasting your time in my opinion. In order to burn a ton of calories doing cardio you need to do HIIT, or high intensity interval training, which calls for short bursts of very high intensity actions followed by a longer rest period and then repeated over and over again. For example you walk on the treadmill at 3.5mph for 2 minutes, then once the 2 minutes is up you bump up the speed to as fast as you can go 8, 9, 10 mph for only 30 seconds. Once the 30 seconds is up drop it back down to a 3.5mph speed for another 2 min and repeat! HIIT is one of the best things for burning calories, and getting you in shape fast!

Both resistance training cardio have their unique benefits, but as for which one is better for getting skinnier, that's all dependent on you and how hard you push yourself! You should try and incorporate both types of training into your regimen though!