In this post, I gave you a simple, straight forward and user friendly pre workout meal plan for gaining muscle. And, in this post, I provided you with a great post workout shake for building muscle.

In today’s post, I’m going to cover our Performance U Pre-workout nutrition and supplementation recommendations for men and women wishing to lose fat.

Weight Loss Vs. Fat Loss

Before I get into the specific pre and post workout nutrtion recommendations. I’d like to first clarify something: Many folks say they’d like to “lose weight”. The truth is, unless you’re a weight class athlete (fighter, jockey, etc:) looking to drop a weight class, what most folks are actually looking for is fat loss.

Basically, we want to lose the fat and keep the muscle. Not just make the numbers on the scale go down.

I’ve found that using metabolic strength protocols like the one’s displayed in our Strength Training Fat Loss DVD are extremely effective for losing fat without losing muscles!

Now that I’ve clarified the difference between Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss – Here is the exact pre workout meal plans we use here at Performance U to help our clients and athletes maximize their fat loss.

Pre Workout Nutrition for Fat Loss!

If you’re in a fat loss phase and trying to maximize fat loss without compromising muscle, here’s what we recommend to eat pre-workout. Some of these recommendations are the same as what we recommend as pre workout nutrion for building muscle. But, there are a few subtle differences.

Consume this 2-3hrs pre-workout:

– A lean protein like chicken breast or fish.

“Consuming EFA’s from fish helps you burn more calories due to the increase oxygen consumption” David Sandler

–  A fibrous carbohydrate source like a salad.

(Eating a salad keeps your blood vessels dilated (open) to increase blood flow and oxygen to the muscles.)

–  A piece of fruit

(preferably something low in fructose like berries, grapefruit, peach, etc:)

Pre workout supplements for fat loss:

– 100-400mg of Caffeine 1hr before your workout.

” Even 1oomg of caffeine per day can help your training and burn fat, if you aren’t already a regular caffeine user” David Sandler

Note: If you choose to get your caffeine from a cup of coffee: For fat loss – Drink your coffee black!

“Adding sugar will prevent free fats from oxidizing because your body will choose to oxidize the carbs instead” Dr. Jose Antonio

Eat this (meal & supplements) within 30-60 minutes pre workout for fat loss:

–   Approx. 20 grams of a fast digesting protein like a whey isolate supplement.

Take this meal as a shake (Protein shake)

–    Only some of our clients are allowed to consume 20-40 grams of a low fructose fruit.

Note: Unlike for the purposes of muscle and strength building, we DO NOT always recommended consuming a fruit carbohydrate as a part of a pre workout meal for the purposes of fat loss. Whether we recommend consuming a pre workout fruit carbohydrate depends on the individual’s bio-individuality (the persons: Metabolism, Genetics, Lifestyle, Stress levels, Profession (active/sedentary), Food Preferences, Workout preferences, etc:)

In general, for folks who seem to lose fat fairly quickly and easily, we’ll allow for a pre workout carb. For hard loser (folks who have a hard time losing fat) we may eliminate the pre workout carb. Also, if eliminating the pre workout carb seems to make the individual crash early during training, we will re-include it in the pre-workout meal in order to maintain full workout intensity.

– 1 serving BCAA’s (Branched Chained Amino Acids) or pure Leucine

– 5 grams of pure Creatine Monohydrate.

Note: if we’re working with a weight class athlete like a boxer, wrestler of MMA fighter – we will not use creatine because a side effect of creatine usage is water retention. However, if your goal is purely fat loss and you don’t have to make weight for a specific sport. Creatine can help elevate your metabolism through its hydration properties.

“A well hydrated cell tends to be more metabolic” Jose Antonio

–    1-3 grams of Beta Alanine.

Note: For any one wishing to lose body fat – maximizing workout intensity is crucial for elevating metabolism both during and post workout. This means, in a fat loss phase, we lengthen the sets and shorten the rest period to increase exercise intensity metabolic demands using the techniques featured in the Strength Training for Fat Loss DVD.

“Beta Alanine will best help folks who perform shorter rests and longer sets. It may not help folks like power lifters who perform shorter sets and longer rests” David Sandler .

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Coming Soon!

In my next post, I’ll give you the Post-workout nutrition strategies we recommends to maximize fat loss and keep the muscle!

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