Earn Your Meals

One of the most important principles in my lifestyle practice is to always earn my meals. What this means is that I don't eat unless I earn it with some kind of exercise before the meal. If I'm being lazy, I will take it as an opportunity to fast and let my body detox and recover. Otherwise, if I eat, I work.

Exercising in a fasted state is a much more efficient way to burn fat than on a full stomach. This is because in a fasted state the body has no choice but to use it's reserves as fuel where as if you eat an 'energy' bar (sugar) before your workout, your body will be using the sugar from the bar for the first 40-60 minutes of your workout and you wont even start burning body fat until the hour mark has past in your workout. Unless you want to workout for a couple hours, I suggest always working out on an empty stomach. Hunger is a very strong motivating force whereas gluttony results in laziness. You will never see a lion hunt on a full stomach.



This lion must have eaten his wheaties.


Exercise before eating is more in line with our primitive, natural way of life. If we take it back to the Paleolithic era of hunters and gatherers this is how we would live. Most of our days would be spent snacking on nuts, seeds, berries, roots, and leaves, whatever we could gather from the environment from which we lived. On occasion, we would feast on wild game or fish but only after spending a full day exerting ourselves on the hunt. I am not a hunter, I am a climber, but I look at climbing the same way. Projecting boulder problems is my hunt, the boulder is the prey, and the send is the kill. In order to access my most animalistic instincts I climb on an empty stomach. This allows my body to produce maximum levels of the appropriate hormones to exert myself to my maximum capability. Being in a fasted state also keeps my mind clear and sharp allowing me better focus and concentrate on the task at hand.

Exercising prior to eating also speeds up your metabolism and will set your body up for maximum digestion and assimilation of the nutrients. The couple hours after your workout, the body is primed and ready to replenish the muscles with the glycogen and proteins needed for recovery. Another major benefit to exercising before eating is that exercise will curb your appetite making it much less likely for you to overeat, and more likely to instinctively eat only what the body needs.


Instead of working out once a day for a long period of time and eating 5 meals a day, try this:

-Go on a light walk every morning for 30-60 minutes on an empty stomach

-Prior to every small solid meal, exercise for 10-15 minutes at a high intensity. The exercise mode is up to you and your preference. You can do a quick circuit of bodyweight exercises, go on a quick barefoot run in the grass, skip rope, or jump on a rebounder (mini trampoline). Other ideas: burpees, jumping jacks, squat jumps, p90x, insanity, etc. With bodyweight exercises there's no excuse to miss a workout.

-IF YOU DON'T EARN IT, DON'T EAT IT!!!