Fasting, Build Phases and What to Eat Before a 5 a.m. Lift

Nikkiey: What's up, you guys? Nikkiey here with WarriorBabe, and welcome to another weekly viewer Q&A. I'm stoked to be here. I'm loving these weekly Q&As, and I know that you guys are too, from the feedback I'm receiving in the comment section.

Before we dive into it, you guys know the drill. We're taking four questions I received from an earlier live Q&A that I do every single Tuesday at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time over on Facebook at facebook.com/WarriorBabeNikkiey, and I'm going to answer them here right now with you guys today.

Before we dive in, I just ask you guys to smash that like button and subscribe to the channel, because every single week we're dropping these weekly Q&As, and they are filled with new questions every single time. And who knows? One of these questions could help you gain the clarity you need for your journey, achieving the results that you want with building muscle, changing body composition, decreasing some body fat, and just looking overall amazing. So let's dive into it.

Question number one: Is intermittent fasting good for you in building muscle? First of all, if I had a penny for every single time I got asked this question, I'd have a lot of money. But seriously, you guys, I get asked this question a lot, so I want to provide some very important clarity for you all if you are looking to build muscle, because intermittent fasting is not a good strategy. It is a tool that has gained a lot of traction in the fitness space, but it's not a tool that's going to help you with overall composition changes.

The majority of people doing intermittent fasting eat within a window that falls at around 11 in the morning to 7 p.m. And a lot of people work out in the morning. Those people who work out in the morning are doing themselves a disservice by not fueling their body before they go and work out.

Your muscle is active tissue. If you're not giving this active tissue energy, and energy comes from nutrition, then it's not going to do the whole process that it needs to do: break it down, build it, yada, yada, yada. Your body needs energy to perform this workout. Your body is going to go inward and look for that energy, and the first spot it's going to look for it is in your muscle stores. So it's going to tap into them, take the energy from the muscle, and give you that energy to perform your workout.

If you just understood that entire process, it is completely counterproductive to building up the muscle that you want to have, which is ultimately what's going to change your body composition and, at the same time, get you toned. So intermittent fasting is not good for building muscle.

If you just want to lose weight and you don't care about having and preserving the muscle in your body, fine. Have that intermittent fasting, have that keto, have all of those fad diets that are out there, because their ultimate goal is just for you to lose weight. What I love to talk about is losing fat, which is preserving your lean muscle at the same time as decreasing the body fat around it. At that point, you've got to make sure you're fueling your body. You've got to make sure you're fueling your muscles. You've got to make sure that you are doing everything that is in alignment with the process of building them. And that, my friends, intermittent fasting is not one of them.

Question number two: I need clarity on how long to stay in a build, because a year seems like a long time. Well, my friends, building muscle takes a long time. It's not an overnight process. You don't pop your body into a microwave and 30 seconds later out comes a toned body.

The second that you accept the fact that building muscle takes time, and that your journey could be 12 months, 18 months, 2 years, once you accept that and wrap your mentality around the reality of what building muscle takes, your journey is going to become so much more enjoyable, so much more fun. And you're not constantly relying on the expectation of, I need to see results in X amount of time, or I need to see results in three months.

My results didn't come overnight. My results didn't come in six months. My results didn't come in a year. My results came at five years of constantly working at changing my body composition, going through multiple different phases of cutting to maintenance to building and back through. At five years, I can say that's the year I was finally super happy and proud of where my body was at. I'm now in year seven, and I'm still actively working on it. It's a never-ending process. It's a lifestyle. Get rid of the timelines that you have and get obsessed with the long-term game of what is actually required of you to build muscle.

Question number three: In your programs, what is the typical timeline spent for a build and then leaning? Or what other people call cutting or fat loss or whatever. So a build phase and a leaning phase.

Inside of WarriorBabe, and if you don't know anything about WarriorBabe or the programs we offer, check out the link in the description below, we talk about all of these different phases. We talk about fat loss. We talk about maintenance. We talk about building. We talk about how to adjust throughout all of those courses and all of those phases.

It totally depends on where you're coming into a build. If you are somebody who needs to build the lean muscle that's going to change your body composition, you need to spend a little bit more time in that build. If you need to do that, six months minimum is where I would recommend you start. It could be a year, or even more than that, maybe two years, depending on where you're coming in.

If you're someone like me and you've got some decent muscle mass, then you don't need to spend that much time in a build. I spend the majority of my time in maintenance. I don't really go into a build anymore, because I don't need to build any more lean muscle. But if you do need to build lean muscle, then you need to spend time in the build phase, and a decent amount of time. As you get older, too, 40, 50, 60 years old, your builds are going to look a little bit longer, because it takes a little more time for you to build muscle.

Going into a cutting or fat loss phase, it entirely depends on how consistent you are throughout your fat loss or cutting phase. If you are somebody who lacks consistency and is inconsistent the majority of the time, well, guess what? The results you're seeking are going to take longer to accomplish. But if you're relatively consistent and you're showing up the majority of the time, then you could look at a fat loss or cutting phase being 12 weeks, 3 months, anywhere up to 5 months. It all depends on your level of consistency throughout.

And then the last question we got, question number four: What should you eat before a workout, specifically a 5 a.m. workout? I love this question, because first of all, I want to speak to the women who are afraid to eat or don't eat before a workout, like I spoke to on the intermittent fasting side of things. If you are afraid or you don't like to eat before you work out, again, you're doing your goals a disservice. It's completely counterproductive to the results that you want to accomplish.

You may be the individual who says, well, if I eat before a workout, I feel so sluggish and so tired. Yes, that is probably what you are going to feel like when you first incorporate a meal before your workout, because you've never done that before. Your body's like, holy cow, what's going on? You're feeding me this. I'm not used to it. I feel all types of weird. But if you consistently keep eating before your workout for two weeks, your body is going to adapt to that meal, and you're going to notice a huge difference in your energy, your strength and your overall performance in your workouts. So if you're just starting out with eating before your workout, keep going and see it through, because after a two-week adaptation period, your body is going to totally love it.

So what should you eat before you work out? For any of you who are morning workout goers, you need something fast. You need something that's going to immediately hit your system so you have that immediate energy to go and crush your workout. For you, I always recommend a protein. No matter what, you want a protein source, whether that's a protein shake or some egg whites, which are always a good go-to.

And then you also want a fast-acting carbohydrate. What I mean by a fast-acting carbohydrate is more of the simple carbs. They have more sugar in them. They spike your insulin and immediately give you that burst of energy, and you're able to go and perform your workout within a 30-minute window, because they're immediately shuttling into your body and into your muscles and giving you the energy you need to perform that lift. For a fast-acting carb source, fruit is great. Rice cakes are great. White rice is great. Anything, again, that has more of a simple makeup in the carbohydrate family.

All right, you guys. That answers all four of the questions I wanted to bring to our viewer Q&A this week. I hope you got tons of value and tons of insight. And maybe this was a question you needed to hear today that's going to help change your mindset and put you on the right path to the goals you want to accomplish of building that muscle and changing your body composition.

If you want to learn more about nutrition and workouts specific to your individual needs, head over to warriorbabe.com and check out our resources page. There's tons of valuable information on that page. You can learn tons about macros and workouts.

Before you head out, please make sure you subscribe to this channel. Every single week we're dropping this viewer Q&A, and who knows? Maybe it's going to be a question you need to hear. All right, guys. I'll see you next time.