Relying on Coffee and Pre-Workout

Do you feel like you need to rely on caffeine or pre-workout to get through your workouts? In this short and sweet episode, Brianna breaks down why this false sense of energy is not actually helping you in the way that you think it is. 
You will learn a little bit more about the impacts this has on your body - because the more you know, the better you can make a plan that works for  YOU.
You will also get some realistic ideas and strategies that you can incorporate that will actually help to fuel your workouts and not leave you feeling burnt out afterwards. 

If you have questions, or topics that you want to hear about, head over to our Instagrams https://www.instagram.com/nucrewnutrition/ or https://www.instagram.com/themomminnutritionist/ and send us a DM!

If you are interested in working with us in Metabolism Makeover you can sign up here! https://metabolismmakeover.co/programs/metabolism-makeover/earlybird/?affiliate=mocktailminutes

Click play, sip back, and be empowered.

Transcript

0:23

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of mocktail minutes. This is Brianna. No Bailey today. I'm winging it solo. So I'm going to try to. Keep it short for you, but I wanted to give you guys something to think about this week because Bailey and I both get questions regarding. This sort of thing. Often. So before I jump in, I'm going to tell you what I'm sipping on. I got a. Um, I don't know, I found this new little place that does a bunch of like fun drinks anyways. Um, I'm having coconut water blended with fresh mango juice. Um, I don't know. It sounded fun. And I wanted a little pick me up. And it's great because I'm trying to increase my potassium and Mingo and coconut both are high in potassium. So. Just an extra way. To have fun with what I'm drinking, getting the minerals that they need. And. Yeah, enjoy it. Okay. So this week I'm going to try to keep it short. You guys know, I like tangents. I'm going to try really hard, but I want to talk about your pre-workout fuel. Or what you're doing pre workout. So. There's a couple things here, but I'm going to start with. Y. You should be feeling your workouts. So I want, and if you're scared of food or you've been scared of carbs or you're like, oh gosh, I don't know if I need to eat more. I want you to think really quickly about what food does for you food. It gives your body. Energy. Literally. So if you are feeling tired or depleted prior to a workout and you want to feel energized, Taking pre-workout or taking caffeine. Is not going to give you energy. It doesn't have calories. So it literally cannot feel your workout and may make you feel a little wired and jittery. That is a false sense of energy. It's not true energy, energy that you need. Is going to come from food and food alone and particularly carbohydrates. I know. They're scary, but hang in there with me. Hopefully after this episode, this little short episode, you are going to feel a little bit better. About feeling your workouts with carbohydrates. So before that, you know, I already said like, okay, you know, You want to feel it before your workouts, but let's even take it a step back. And think. Why we would want to fuel before workouts, right? So I think a lot of times people. Kind of get this a little bit confused, right? Cause it's like, oh, I want to lose weight. So that means I need to burn calories. So, you know, working out is a great way to burn calories. And then if I eat less on top of that, I'm really just like winning right. So most people will just think like, okay, gosh, pre-workout or something. Simple that doesn't have any calories, more bang for my buck, but that's really how you're going to number one, burn yourself out. Number two, feel like crap Eve either during your workout or after your workout. Three, not really be able to progress in your workouts, meaning you're never going to increase weight. You're never going to increase. Performance really anything. Cause you're not properly fueling your workouts. And then four, you're not going to be able to maintain muscle or I guess, build muscle and then recover. You know, repair it and then maintain it if you were under eating. So I want you to think about why you work out and the answer is not because I want to lose weight. That's not why, if you were working out for the sole purpose of losing weight, That is a bad plan working out. Actually doesn't do much for you in terms of the calorie burn. I just want to throw it out there. It doesn't, it's such a minimal amount of calorie burn for your overall day. It's not the smartest thing now with that being said, You should absolutely be working out, working out is fantastic for your health. You need it. You need it for longevity. You need it for muscle building. You need it to improve your cardiovascular health. Working out is amazing. So if this is you today and you've thought, gosh, the only reason why I work out is because I want to lose weight. Let's maybe change our mindset about working out. Kay's COSO working out. Is to improve your overall body. You need to do it fueled. We have done episodes on post-workout fuel, I believe, or like post-workout recovery. So I'm going to try not to go into depth there. I just really want to focus on the pre-workout and the two things that I see. So I either see number one, people are waking up early in the morning. They are skipping food because it's early and it feels cruddy on their stomach to eat something. And they are having a little bit of coffee. To fuel their workout cause they need the caffeine to get going. Or they are taking a scoop of pre-workout because they decided to wait until the end of the day to work out. And they're exhausted from work or dealing with the kids or doing all the things that we do all day. And you need a pick me up before you can hit a hard workout. So. Both of these things, I'm going to challenge you on because they're not the best. And here's why. So let's start with the coffee. We have talked before about cortisol. I don't want people to be like demonizing cortisol, because we need cortisol to live. It's what gets us out of bed in the morning. It is the highest in the morning. If we didn't have cortisol, we would not be getting out of bed. We would die. Okay. But the issue is prolonged periods of high cortisol, especially like spikes throughout the day. All these things that we don't necessarily want. We don't want high cortisol. Throughout the day. This really impacts how we store fat, how we burn fat, our nervous system, all of the things. So. Your cortisol is highest in the morning. This can be beneficial for you because it can help a workout. The, the other thing. Okay, let me back up. Cortisol is high in the morning. Okay. We know this. Other things that can increase cortisol. Our coffee. And working out. Yes. This spike of cortisol that you get from working out is not a bad thing. But it's something to be mindful of. It is a stressor on your body. It is a good stressor. When we're doing it correctly, we have talked before and here as well about overworking out and what that does for your cortisol and how sometimes we need to pull back a little bit in order to see weight loss because of that manipulation on cortisol. So we know that our cortisol is naturally high in the morning. We know that caffeine spikes cortisol. Again, research does show that if you're someone who's a consistent caffeine drinker, your body kind of adjust to this. Cool. Great. But it's still something you can manipulate. Okay. Like, I don't. I feel like we, we are a broken record at this point. It's not about doing everything perfect. It's not about finding loopholes either. It's about knowing everything that can impact your body. And choosing to manipulate how, and when you do things to best serve, you. So if you're someone who is highly stressed all the time, or you have a lot going on, or you have a busy day after your workout, in my opinion, manipulating your cortisol spike throughout the morning is beneficial to you. Okay. Bottom line. Don't come for me. And if you don't think it is. Then don't do anything that I'm about to tell you. Okay. So we know working out is increases your cortisol. We know coffee increases your cortisol. We know it's the highest in the morning. So if you were someone who wakes up, insulin grabbed some coffee, and then you head to your workout. What you're doing is you were increasing this cortisol spike, and you were prolonging this cortisol spike. So something that can help is to actually properly fuel your workout. And this is the time that I'm going to talk. I'm going to talk about this with the pre-workout as well. I'm going to talk about carbohydrates. Carbohydrates is your main source of energy. It is useful. They are not something to be scared of. We have demonized them so much, but your body loves them. Your thyroid loves them. Your muscles, love them. Everything loves them. And you know what else loves them? Cortisol, because we know that having carbohydrates at breakfast can decrease your cortisol. So if you are someone who has been. Trying to be good or trying to eat low carb and you, you know, your thyroid isn't functioning. Great. And your adrenals are tapped. Maybe your weight, your, your efforts for weight loss have been impacting you more negatively than you think. So. This can not only. Feel your workout and make you feel great. It can also help manipulate that cortisol. So I recommend having some carbs naked as I like to call them. This is the only time I recommend having naked carbs because we want that glucose spike, because we want to use that energy right now. We want to use that energy right now to fill our fuel our workouts. We want to be lifting. With energy that we have put in our body. That's what we want to do. So I understand, and not everybody is a morning eater. I am, especially before a workout. And I know I am this way. I can't have anything heavy. This is where I see people going a little wrong because they're really following the like Perrier carbs rule, which I love. But they're doing it in the morning before a workout and they're having, um, some toast with peanut butter. Or maybe a banana with peanut butter. That is excellent to do. If you're doing it in the middle of the day as a snack, and you don't need that blood sugar spike. But this is going to kind of cause you to have a stomach ache during your workout because that fat is slowing the absorption and slowing down the digestion. And that's not what we want before. We're getting to work out in. So, this is where I would recommend having some dried fruit, maybe a banana. Maybe some toast, a rice cake, applesauce, packets, fruit snack. I know mom's out there. If you will always have those applesauce, squeeze packets in your house. I know this for a fact. I use one of those. I also like, um, The little that's it bars I'll pick those up from Costco. If I'm working out at the gym, I'll make sure to keep, just keep a giant bag in my car. That way I always have something as a pre-workout snack. Whatever it is. Do it. Dates are great too. So Mingo, whatever it is. Have some naked carbs and then really. Note. How your workouts feel, because this is going to fuel your body, your workout so much better than coffee. Maybe you won't feel like so mentally turned on at first, but you're physically going to feel so much stronger. And then the great thing is. You were going to be able to enjoy your coffee. Post-workout at a time where your quarters all is just naturally lower and you're going to be able to get the full effects of caffeine. We've talked about that as well. So try that out. Next scenario, I'm going to make this quick. Pre-workout, I will always stand by the fact that if you feel too tired at the end of your day to get a workout in, you are under eating. For your needs that day bottom line, if you were feeling tired and you were feeling sluggish and you were just like, it's more than like a hum mentally like, oh gosh, judges don't want to go to the gym, but I guess I'll go. If it's more of like a. I feel like I'm going to have to drag myself in there and I'm just going to be a slug the whole time. Your body is telling you. I am exhausted. I need more energy. I don't have enough. So if this is you really take a look at your breakfast, take a look at your lunch. Have you been skipping out on carbs all day? Have you been under eating just period. All macronutrients all day. What is it? Reaching for. The pre-workout. Is really just going to attacks your adrenals again, we're going to be. You know, focusing on this kind of cortisol to carry us through this false sense of energy, this false sense of fuel. It is not working for you. So. Increase. Your food throughout the day. And also rule of thumb if it's been, you know, three, four, or even more, which it shouldn't, but if it's been more than. Three to four hours since you've had your last meal, you need a snack. And so you can kind of manipulate this to be like, okay. I'm going to have my lunch at this time. I know I'm going to work out at this time. So I need to bring a snack to have in the car after work on the way to the gym or to have readily available at home while I'm getting dressed into my workout clothes before I had a workout, whatever it is, the reason I see people struggle with this is they are so fixated on. Oh, my gosh. I have to have proper timing between meals. And if I have a snack that's like too close to dinner. I there's no way I can eat dinner. After having a snack. Stop thinking about it. And again, start thinking about. Fueling your workout. You're going to be using that energy. And. You're going to have a good, like, here's the thing. When you properly fuel your workouts and you're able to get in a good workout, your body is going to be craving that recovery food. I guarantee you, you are going to be ready for dinner. And you should and have a dinner. That's full of some protein, definitely containing some carbohydrates, especially if you lifted, because we want to replenish those glycogen stores. It actually does work out really well. So get out of your head a little bit with the timing. It doesn't need to be perfect. What you need to be thinking about is how does my body need to be supported today? Your body doesn't give a crap. I'm not going to cuss because I don't think we cost on those podcasts. Your body doesn't give a crap. What time it is, your body cares about what you were, what you were asking it to do. And if you want to get the most out of your workouts, which you should, because working out is a lot of work. You want to make sure you are fueling properly and then recovering properly to get the most benefits. Or else you're kind of just spinning your wheels and really you're working too hard and not reaping the full benefit. So. Feel your workouts. Again, the pre-workout snacks that I said to happen for breakfast. You can absolutely have those before your workout. Now I'm not going to get too. Nitty-gritty on the amount of carbs that you need. The timing of the carbs. I feel like that's getting into the weeds a little bit. Just now. If you have a couple of pieces of dried fruit, or you have a banana or whatever, that's pretty adequate for what you're doing, unless you're doing like some really intense powerlifting. Maybe you need more, but you were going to be able to judge this. Okay. So. Go into your workout. Hat like fuel it and then see where you able to do your full workout today. Were you able to go through your workout before feeling like you're crashing and burning or hangry? And I don't know. Have you increased your weights? In the last few weeks, because if you're still using the same weights that you've been doing for the last, you know, Couple months or even year. I, I see women who are using the same weights of debuts for five years. You are not fueling properly enough to lift more weight and gain strength. That is the point of it. So. Stop relying on coffee. Stop. Relying on pre-workout. Give your body, what it needs, energy. The only way you're going to do that is food. I know that we like have this misconception because they're like, oh, coffee wakes me up or pre-workout really gets me going and energizes me. It's not actually energizing you. It's a false sense of energy. And then you feel kind of crappy after. Let's be honest, coming down from pre-workout or too much coffee. Phil's really cruddy. And I think we're just conditioned to be like, oh gosh, that must have meant that I had a good workout today. No, it probably means that you're under fueled. So. I again, get the most bang for your buck. Feel your workouts. Uh, just what you need daily off of what you're asking your body to do, and really think about everything that goes into it. What's going on with my cortisol right now. What's going on with my blood sugar right now. What's what am I asking my body? What am I about to go do? When I work my muscles, what is that doing? What is that? Depleting? How do I refuel it? All of those things, because it is. There's so many moving pieces. And once you really understand each individual piece, you're able to come up with a plan. Daily that's really. Meant for your specific body and needs and what you're doing for that day. So. Hopefully this was helpful. Um, I feel like a Bailey was not here to reign me in. We kind of like bounce off of each other to make sure that we don't go too long, but that is all I have for you make sure that you tune in next week, we have a really exciting episode. Um, On different hormones that impact weight loss, and maybe not in a way that you typically think of. So. I'll leave that there. All right, that's it for now guys. Bye.