Hi Everyone,
If you were a fit and healthy 25 year old that had just finished a 10km run that evening, which of the two following options would be better for your health:
a/ A regular Big Mac meal or
b/ No dinner that night.
I was having this discussion and disagreement with a colleague recently, so I present you with the choice.
Please let me know your thoughts
What a coincidence, I was pondering the exact same question but without the 10km run.
No dinner if your body can handle it.
You only need to eat for energy or pleasure and if you don't need either of that then you can go without.
Milk. Chocolate milk or any milk works.
KFC.
Could you do a shorter run and use the time saved to cook up something vaguely healthy?
pick up some road kill along the run. fricasseed possum is so tasty!
Not enough information to give an opinion.
Have you eaten enough already that day?
Have you satisfied your micronutrient and macronutrient needs already?
If we are talking about survival (which the title "starving" suggests you are), then either is fine. The human body is remarkable and can survive on plenty or few.
If we are talking about optimal, then you need to give far more information.
Yes in this case, we had a regular balanced breakfast and lunch, then had the run in the evening.
I would be 'starving' by the end of the day if I had nothing to eat.
Still not enough information. Were your nutritional needs met?
Nutrition is actually quite a complex issue, but for what I think you are looking for, the answer is: do what you want to.
If you want to go into optimum health wise, there needs far more information. If you want to know what is good to do, then do what you want. Eat. Assuming your nutrition needs have been met, you have no other health factors, you are at a regular body composition, and so forth, then it is as simple as that.
But no. You wouldn't be starving if you had nothing to for an evening. (If we are using the word starving literally). Humanity wouldn't have lasted if that were the case.
Skipping a meal once in a while won’t kill you. Most Aussies could stand to lose a few kgs.
IMO hunger (that feeling you get in your stomach) has almost zero correlation to the "need to eat" and is far more correlated to habit. If you stopped having breakfast for a few days you stop feeling hungry at breakfast time. Likewise - I expect you always eat after exercise (?) and therefore feel hungry after exercise. All meal "times" work like this.
This is why people who do "one meal a day" do it without feeling hungry all day. It's actually really easy once you start.
I mostly do "one meal a day" but sometime need to eat more to maintain my weight. When I start having lunch I'm always hungry at lunchtime. When I stop having lunch I feel hungry at lunchtime only for the next day or so then it stops.
Eating 6 meals a day used to be gospel, and the proof was that "I'm starving every 3 hours". But you've hit it on the head. Human's are very resilient, and get used to any number of things. You can survive by eating only potatoes. You can survive by eating once a day. It's not even the norm in the world today, let alone throughout most of history, that people have thought "three square meals" was the right way about it.
Your body learns to release insulin in anticipation of a meal. This drops your blood sugar, so when you miss a meal you feel hungry and light headed.
You are absolutely right, once you train this out you can go all day on one meal. However it takes several weeks before you no longer feel hungry, and most people don't know it's possible that things will change so they give up
I fasted about 60 hours for colonoscopy. After that long I wasn’t hungry but the nurses asked me to eat.
I frequently move from one meal a day to more meals a day (depending on my weight etc). Honestly it takes 1 to 2 days to adjust.
A single small snack will negate any progress though.
One reason I do one meal a day is that after eating lunch I feel too lethargic and lose productivity - it just works better for me.
And, once I start eating - I could eat all day!! (despite not needing to).
When i eat mcdonalds i always feel like shit afterwards, i just cant eat that non food any more.
It's call the McGrets.
Maybe pass on the whole big-mac meal - remove the fries and soft-drink, the protien hit from the burger (or two ;)) is a great post-run meal.
Are you hungry?
Yes - Eat
No - Don't eat
As iDroid said, regular “hunger” feeling is a habit.
I get the dinnerly box delivered each week with 3 meals. At least 3 normal meals with little effort - 30 minutes easy recipes. Between that and our own cooking we always have leftovers building up in the freezer/fridge for emergency/lazy nights.
Despite quality of produce sometines a bit dodgy the dinnerly meals are simple and effective and work out pretty cheap. But its so convenient to not have to worry about food and have a variety of simple and nice home cooked meals every week.
Especially when my partner is gone for longer periods it is brilliant as the 3 meals feed me for 6 nights when on my own.
KFC $8 for 5 pieces OG
350g Coles salad mix - $4
300g chicken breast - $4
There's your EZ dinner OP. More than enough to fill a grown man for half the price of your McSlop meal, and your colon will thank you.
After a 10km run any food is better than no food, your body needs energy and nutrients to recover and grow.
Steak and chips is a very easy meal to make and beats the pants of Mcdonalds though.
Boiled eggs, and oats+milk if you want to replenish glycogen.
Cheaper, easy to prepare, better for your health.
But given the choices, yeah better to eat the maccas than just fast after a run like that.
Boiled eggs, and oats+milk
This is the dinner you make to ensure your priced-out-of-the-housing-market kids don't come back home.
Question should be "least worst" instead 😜
The burgers are better at….
Your better off eating nothing.
Let's make it clear, running is primarily a cardiovascular exercise. It's ineffective at keeping weight off and it's not a muscle building exercise, it's cardio. So in this instance you're better off missing that meal since there are no gains to be made.
If you were weightlifting then it might be a different story and will all be dependent on your caloric intake for the day and whether your goal is to lose weight or gain more mass.
Well I would argue that runners have better/stronger leg muscles and core strength as a result of doing it, so not really true.
Also cardio exercise, especially over reasonably long distances like 10km that would take most people the best part of an hour or more, provides a lot of benefits in terms of your metabolism and general health, while also burning calories at a fair rate. So saying it has no benefit in terms of weight management is simply not true. What is true though is that you can't exercise away a bad diet.
That's before I even get started on the mental health benefits of running.
It's ineffective at keeping weight off and it's not a muscle building exercise, it's cardio.
Not trying to lose weight though. He is young fit and healthy and needs to replace that energy he burned. (I agree McDonalds is not ideal though)
Missing one dinner is not going equate to any loss of progress especially for a runner where nutrients can be replenished the following morning with better food.
Intermittent fasters do this all the time. A skipped meal, is going to affect a weightlifter more than a runner would. Whilst running does develop muscle, you're not reaching hypertrophy the same way weightlifting does. The skipped McDonald's meal will not equate to any regression.
I still stand by the fact it's primarily a Cardio workout. There are much more effective workouts to increase metabolism, strength and overall fitness. This is not a dig at running, it's all about knowing what exercises do what for your body.
We are not talking about a 'one off' situation here though.
The question is in general: should he eat after his 10km evening runs, and the answer is, yes he should.
Proper post-exercise nutrition and recovery is vital for long-term performance, injury prevention, and overall well-being.
Based on time spent cardio will burn more overall calories than any other exercise.
1kg of muscle increases BMR by about 13 calories a day.
Not only that cardio is much more important for your health than lifting weights if you had to choose between the two.
Not only that cardio is much more important for your health than lifting weights if you had to choose between the two.
Disagree with this part. There have been muscle biopsies of endurance athletes who don't lift. Decades later, they're 90% slow-twitch fibers.
And anacdata: everyone I know irl who ran frequently has had some kind of surgery (ACL, hips, etc).
@filmer: Resistance training is much more important for daily health. Cardio builds endurance. How often does a person in modern society do an endurance activity? We use our muscles all the time, walking up steps, carrying groceries, or walking on slippery pavement after rain.
It is definitely more beneficial to have both aspects in your training but for heart health, you can replicate the cardio benefits by doing more reps with less rest. However, you can't replicate compound resistance training with traditional cardio exercises.
@star-ggg: I agree doing both is better, but if you had to choose between the two focusing on heart health is much better. Not to mention if you do multiple forms of cardio (jog, swim, bike) this will build your muscle up enough for longevity.
@filmer: Again, you can improve your heart health just as good with weight training. Also, look up bone density differences between open chain (swimming, biking) and closed chain exercises (running, weight training). Regular resistance training will satisfy all the requirements for a healthy body. Cardio will not.
@star-ggg: A brisk walk will provide more cardiovascular improvements than weight training unless you are doing CrossFit style. Given more people die from heart disease than anything else its safe to say that improving this is better than improving bone density if you had to choose between the two.
@filmer: Spending the same amount of time doing an exercise which gives half the benefits is just poor value when we're going with the assumption you can only choose one.
@star-ggg: Cardio = mild muscle building, great cardiovascular improvements.
Weights = mild cardiovascular improvements, great muscle improvements
We are talking one off situation. OP says no dinner "that" night not every night.
in that one instance you're better off missing that one meal. As mentioned, there are many who even practice intermittent fasting who do this on a 16/8 schedule with no loss to their performance.
And for the argument that running is more beneficial than weightlifting, i'm not gonna argue which is better. That is all dependent on your goals. Like i said, right exercise for what you are trying to achieve, simply saying one is better is misleading. You do you, go run if that's what your prefer but from a nutritional standpoint, a missed meal is not going to affect you the way it would a bodybuilder would. I'd be more concerned about rehydration than missing a meal.
Despite it being mainly cardio, you're muscles need protein, so I would say 1 woolies chicken.
10km takes a fair bit out of you, so eating nothing isn't the best idea. There are better options than Macca's though!
I suspect the argument was more from lazy friend saying they don't run or wat maccas and arguing it's better than running and eating it. Lazy friend would most certainly be wrong. Exercise trumps no exercise.
Actually, my colleague is in this case the runner and he said he'd rather eat nothing than consume Macca's after a run. I said no, calories are required to refuel even as sub-optimal as Macca's is, it's still better for the body than nothing. Hence the debate ensues…
oh well sort've a pointless debate then as presumably colleague will just eat something else lol
One meal makes barely any difference (whether you eat or not). Only long term trends matter.
Humans are built for far worse than this dilemma.
Odds are you are probably still gonna be an Aussie fatty living a life of relative ease.
I actually agree and think in the grand scheme of things, it will make little to no difference if this was just a one-off occurrence.
It does and doesn’t at the same time. What you want to build are habits, assuming you have a long term goal of being healthy. And in that, every drop fills the ocean. But you are also free to experiment for as long as you want and enjoy the process. Define and refine your goals often, it tends to serve people better when they know where or who they wanted to be.
1)st option. No Pain, No pain. No run, eat nothing .
2) No run, eat healthy - cook yourselves.
3) No run and whatever.
4) No run
That's about 600 calories you've burned (2508Kj)
Order anything you like up to that value to satisfyingly cancel out that scary run. :)
I couldn't think of any thing worse than eating maccas or starving myself after a run. why did you pick these 2? Seems bizarre to me. I run 7km every day and the first thing I do is drink water. Then after I have cooled down, I will either something nutrional or have a protein shake.
even afl players are given lollies and Powerade/Gatorade full of sugar after a game, u need to replenish, regardless of what the fule source is its much better, unless your goal is to lose weight.
Mate you gotta fuel up. Get the Macca's in champ
Large triple cheeseburger with a double cheeseburger on the side.
On the side? Triple Double cheeseburger stacker
eat what you want, excersise occasionally, and enjoy being alive. Maybe don't run 10km. Sounds aweful.
A big Mac isn't really that bad for you, just don't drink a full sugar soft drink with it. You'll need the carbs and protein anyway.
Not much bio available protein in a big mac, but yeah, it's doesn't sound too bad for OP if he's healthy and running.
Need the calories generally.
Not eating.
Health is defined as the absence of disease or injury.
Depending how intense the run was post exercise the strength of your immune system can dip.
So acquiring Maccas is less healthy because it involves coming into contact with people and food who carry disease that you otherwise wouldn't have.
"Health" is like the "economy" though. It can be used to describe many different things and context is important.
If you had an intensive run and started feeling light headed then I would say eating the Maccas would be more healthy because you would be more likely to pass out and injure yourself.
A lot of factors here, like is this a one time thing or a everyday thing? Did they have two large healthy meals earlier in the day? is the aim to lose weight or to recover quickly or to get a faster run time? or just for "health"
Fasting has its major health benefits in conjunction with a complete healthy diet, hydration and exercise, fasting is commonly demonized in the western diet/culture but is actually something proven to increase quality of life when used in moderation.
Maccas is mostly simple fast digesting calories with little to no nutritional value that will spike insulin levels…. is that what you want after a run? depends on your health goals..
Processed meats, deep fryed chips and soft drinks are all arguably a mild carcinogen that may lower life expectancy
Depends your lifestyle, what else have you eaten before, context is important. Burning glucose/cycling stored sugar? Maccas without the bun or the soft drink, and at least two hours before sleep. Just a fun thing you decided to do? Either option is ok. If you are bodybuilding, I’m sure you know it all comes down to IIFYM. In general, you don’t need to refuel after cardio, only weights. If you are somewhat fat-adapted, fasting is the more optimum route.
There are a lot of options on McDonalds menu that are much healthier than Big Mac and taste just as good… Grilled chicken wraps/deluxe burgers, filet o fish, and even the Angus beefs burgers if you want beef. Legit just order the Big Mac sauce separately if you really crave the Big Mac taste.
in this scenario, is the run mandatory? Can I just skip to the Maccas?
Didn't they say happiness is the best medicine? I would pick that big mac meal any day after exercise.
BigMac is not optimal but not too bad. Sometimes I only get a pack of Mi Goreng after a run.
It depends on whether the intention is for muscle gain or weight loss, but typically for the latter you want to delay eating for about an hour as you want to encourage the body to utilise fat stores.
Well, supposed to have a 30 min window after excercise where protein uptake is increased. So most people have a protein drink, as it's meant to be complete and "high quality" protein. Food is going to be absorbed slower. Almost thought protein was a scam, but helped with recovery on my last warehouse job. So protein drink asap, then some type of food after 30 min. Depending on your situation of course.
That's a lot of words just to say that you're allergic to the truth.
I get it; no one likes being reminded of the fact that they're contributing to their own early demise and you would prefer to bury your head in the sand.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming to help cleanse the guilt and hypocrisy from your conscience: $12.95 Zinger Burger Combo for Two @ KFC (Online & Pickup Only)
Citation needed. You're grossly overestimating the intelligence of the lowest common denominator in society given the ever-skyrocketing profits of fast food corporations.
Yeah, nationally we've made the choice to be obese so it stopped being a strictly personal issue a long time ago.
This country is a huge proponent of attempting to ban and legislate away idiocy and yet on this front, it's been crickets and token lip service for the past 2 decades.
I think you underappreciate just how much of a problem obesity and chronic poor health is in first-world countries and you attempt rationalise it away with the weakest possible excuses.