Welcome to the Get Fit Guys, quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up. My name is Ben Greenfield. I'm the Get Fit

Guy, and today we're going to be talking about whether you should eat carbohydrates before exercise.

If you ask most physicians, sports nutritionists, and dietitians, they'll tell you that carbohydrates

must comprise a major part of your daily dietary intake if you're going to be able to maintain

optimum physical performance. But is that really the case? Well, in this episode, you'll find out

whether you really need to eat carbohydrates before you exercise, and if so, how much and what kind of

carbohydrates to eat. So first, let's look at how the body actually burns carbohydrates.

The general consensus among nutrition professionals that active people need to eat carbohydrates

before exercise is based on many studies that have been performed in the last 100 years, primarily linking muscle

carbohydrate stores to a better ability to perform high-intensity exercise. In addition, many doctors

report that their patients who follow low-carbohydrate diets frequently experience lightheadedness,

weakness, fatigue, and poor motivation, especially

when they're trying to exercise. All of this makes pretty good sense, since when you ask your

muscles to work hard or produce a very strong contraction, they need access to fast burning energy,

which is exactly what carbohydrates are. Compared to fats and proteins,

carbohydrates offer a muscle pure sugar that it can use to produce energy, also known as ATP.

Muscles and the rest of your body can still use fats and proteins to produce energy,

usually by converting them into forms of sugars, fats, or amino acids, but this process

takes a longer time to complete and isn't your body's preferred form of making energy for high

intensity exercise. Now, what happens if you're completely carbohydrate depleted and your body

has no sugar to burn? Well, first, you'll find it more difficult to produce

an intense contraction like a maximum bench press or an all-out sprint. Second, your motivation to

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