HYPOTHETICALLY Speaking, what would happen if one were to completely starve themselves EXCEPT for post-workout nutrition??

Say for example you were 200 lbs, and you didn't eat AT ALL except for immediately after training 100g dextrose/50g whey and the same 2 hours later but in a solid meal. What would happen? (And just for more hypothetical circumstances heh, let's only consider training days hehe)

Now, what if you added cardio into the mix? -- moderate intensity cardio for like 45 minutes to burn off 400-500 calories (at another time of day separate from training session)

Again, all just hypothetically speaking hehe... Would you lose muscle even though PWO nutrition is good? Would you gain muscle?? Would you lose/gain fat??

Any input welcome!!

are you serious? 'gain muscle'? 'lose fat'? try losing your life. you just described what i see as a strange form of anorexia.

Um yeah, bad idea mate.


Please do more research before posting bogus propositions like this.

I employ this plan year-round, which is why I'm 225lbs at 6% bf.

Hmm, nevermind that one... sry

(Delete if possible?...)

well starvation is def not good, but there is def evidence to suggest the majority of ur carbs should be around ur workout. so if u had a few 300 calorie meals as well as ur big shake and meal pw it would be much better than starvation

Having a good number of carbs around your workout is probably going to be beneficial, but there are two things to consider.

a) You want insulin low but stable all day long. This means spreading at least some carbs throughout the day, from morning to night, so insulin can play its anticatabolic role.

It's pointless to take in some sort of absurd number of carbs around training (NOTE: Depletion/refeed style workouts are a huge exception, so...), because gastric emptying becomes rate-limiting, and the insulin sensitivity window isn't really that long. Plus, regardless, it doesn't take that many carbs to replenish muscle glycogen unless you're doing some serious volume and my understanding from Lyle is that once glycogen is topped off, the 'improved insulin sensitivity' around training means jack squat.

So...a big pre/during/post-workout shake (whatever you prefer) is definitely a good idea, but I do suspect many people take this concept too far. But that's just sort of been my impression here.

As for the starvation -- umm, yeah, what Tkarrde said.