Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. My name is Roger Sutherland, certified nutritionist, veteran law enforcement officer, and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades. Through this podcast, I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's show. And welcome back to another episode of a healthy shift podcast today. Today's episode, as per usual, has come out of a conversation that I've had with a follower on Instagram. And it's around pre-workouts and the benefits. Now, anybody that follows me on social media will know that I post my pre-workout is something that's a 30 gram protein milk drink and a coffee or a long black. And I say that's all you need. And people ask me questions about this, so today I want to go into that. Now, before we go on, I'm going to ask you a favor today. Really important. So many people are listening to this podcast at the moment, but no one is rating or reviewing it. Now, I do this because it's a passion project, and I absolutely love doing this podcast and getting evidence-based information out there for you, the shift worker. And all I ask for in return from you is something that's quite simple. And all you've got to do on Spotify is go to the main page, open up the Healthy Shift podcast, and then just hit the three dots and rate it. Simple. That's it. Now on Apple, you can literally go and hit the stars at the top and rate it. And you can even go down to the bottom and you can write a review as well. And this seriously really helps the show. I'm losing my way and I'm losing interest a lot in social media due to lack of total and utter lack of engagement because there isn't any engagement at all. People are just zombie scrolling and they're not engaging with any of it. And why would I bother actually putting content out there to help the shift worker if no one bothers to engage? And the interesting thing is for me is a lot of people listen to the podcast and they say, Oh, I got so much out of that episode. It's really good. Did you rate it? Uh oh no, I'll um I will, I'll get to it. Um, or they say, Oh, your posts in relation to this have been really, really good. Did you like it? Oh no. Um, yeah. Um, and this is a problem because I'm here doing this because I love it. Now, I can be perfectly honest with you. At my age, I'm 61, I've done 40 years in the cops and I've got a very healthy superannuation, and I could literally just walk away, turn it all off, and just live happily ever after without the frustration of trying to deal with putting content out to help others. But I really want to do that. I really want to help others, but all I need is the engagement back. That's all I ask for. Now, a lot of the time I end up in conversations in my DMs in relation to a number of particular issues. And one of them is about this pre-workout. So today I really want to talk about pre-workouts because I can't go into it in DMs. It just takes too long. Honestly, by the time I finish writing something or voice noting it, I could have been doing something else that I should have been probably doing anyway. So today, let's talk about pre-workouts because a lot of people believe that they're taking something that is beneficial, or and because of the names of them, like shred or burner or something along those lines, they believe that it's burning fat because of the contents that are in it and the way that it's marketed. And I'm going to be quite clear with you, they don't do that. It's that simple. The only way, and I mean the only way that you gain a fat loss or you can elicit fat loss is from a calorie deficit. It is that simple. That is the only way that you can lose body fat. It doesn't matter what you put in your system, it makes no difference. You can be eating donuts, but if you're in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. It is that simple. Always. There is no powder, no nothing that overrides energy balance at all. Now I know this is going to step on some toes, and the supplement industry is loud. It's also very, very well marketed, bright colors, talks about things like um fat burners and um, you know, we've got things like carnitine and and et cetera, et cetera. It's really well marketed. And these products will make you feel something when you take them. But feeling something is not the same as physiology. So let's break that down properly so that you totally understand and you have a handle on what it is that I'm actually saying. Now I've got a label in front of me here on a particular and very, very well-known product. You can follow the bouncing ball if you like, and I'll tell you, one scoop is 4.2 grams, five calories. That is one gram of carbohydrate. For a start, how can that possibly be a pre-workout? Because straight away that isn't even fuel. It's not fuel because our body runs on glucose, and glucose fuels us, and glucose comes from carbohydrates and it's got one gram. It's like drinking those monster energy, so-called energy drinks that have got zero calories. That's zero energy, full stop. I need to make that clear. Then we see this big claim on it, and it literally says these words the fat burning matrix equals two thousand and three milligrams, and you think, wow, that's not bad. 2003 milligrams includes acetyl, L-carnitine, Garcinia Cambogia, CLA, grapefruit seed extract, raspberry ketones, mango seed extract, bitter orange, coffee, green coffee bean, olive leaf, gudgel, chromium. That's 11 ingredients. And that's all inside two grams. Remember? 2,003 milligrams. That's two grams. That means on average, each ingredient is under 200 milligrams. Now let's compare that to what the research actually tells us in relation to these products that are in it. Because what this company does is actually stretches the truth. Because they might say that L-carnitine elicits fat loss. But you see, the effective doses in studies are around a thousand to 3,000 milligrams per day. Per day, not 150 milligrams. And carnitine actually does not cause fat loss in people who are not deficient. And most people are not deficient in carnitine. Majority of people are not deficient. And L-carnitine is generally used for bodybuilders that are in a surplus to prevent fat gain. That is how carnitine is generally used. And in fact, when I studied, this is how it's recommended. Now let's look at the next thing Garcinia Cambodia. Now, the research dose of carcinia Cambodia is 1,500 to 3,000 milligrams a day. And even then, the results are very small and extremely inconsistent. And this product simply does not contain that dose. Then we have CLA. Now the research dose, 3,000 to 6,000 milligrams per day. Now this entire blend doesn't even equal that amount. And even at proper doses, fat loss is modest at absolute best. Yeah, it doesn't work. Raspberry ketones. Do you know the research around raspberry ketones is predominantly rodent? Rat data. There is hardly any human evidence at all. This is literally a marketing ingredient. Green coffee bean extract. Research research uses about four hundred milligrams of a standardized extract. And the effects are small. Again, it's not properly dosed in this either. Chromium. The dose listed is 10 micrograms. Yeah, see, that's actually physiologically irrelevant for fat loss as well. Now here's the key issue this is actually a proprietary blend. You have no idea how much of each ingredient you're actually getting. And that alone should actually concern you. Then they've got an immunity blend in it. Beauty, it's building immunity. 625 milligrams in total. L-glutamine, inulin, vitamin C. Okay? Glutamine studies use five grams or more. Inulin for gut benefit. Yep, that's three to ten grams per day. This is literally label padding. It's rubbish. All right, let's move to the mood enhancer blend that's in it. 851 milligrams in total. We've got L tyrosine. We've got taurine. We've got caffeine. We've got Huperzia serrata. Now we get to the only ingredient that reliably works. You ready? You ready for this? One, two, three. Caffeine. Effective performance dose of caffeine is three to six milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That means for an 80 kilogram person, anyone that's 80 kilos, you need somewhere between 240 and 480 milligrams. Now all caffeine does is improves alertness because it just blocks an adenosine receptor. It reduces a perceived effort, it improves a power outfit output, and that is real. But we have no idea how much caffeine is in this scoop that you've put in out of your container because it's hidden inside a blend. Now tyrosine works at 500 to 2,000 milligrams. Taurine works at 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams. But the entire blend is 851 milligrams. So none of this is actually properly dosed at all. Yeah, it's in there, or it may be. We wouldn't know. But the thing is, it's not properly dosed. So what about beta-alanine? Some versions include it. Now, most of you that take a pre-workout will know all about beta alanine. This is the ingredient that makes your skin tingle, and that tingling is called paresthesia. And people think that that sensation means it's working. Yep, it's working alright. It's just a nerve response because beta alanine only works by saturating muscle over time. And the effective dose, wait for it, 3.2 to 6.4 grams daily for weeks, and it is not an acute fat burner. And it does not work from one scoop of 2,000 milligrams of a proprietary blend before training. Fact. So you can hear it, feel it, and you think, oh, it's kicked in. My pre-workout's kicked in. Yeah. The fool is on you. It's literally just a nerve response to a small dose of beta-alanine, and that's what it does. So what is the product? What is it? Well, it's flavoured water with caffeine and a whole heap of undosed, underdosed ingredients. Oh, plus stimulation to create a perception of effect. That's it. It doesn't burn fat. It doesn't even override energy balance. What it does is it stimulates you, and how does it do that? Ah, caffeine. So it's expensive flavored water with caffeine in it. That's what you're spending your hard-earned money on. Now, let me tell you what to do. Most people see me on social media with a protein milk. 30 grams of protein. Now, a lot of people can't eat before they go and train. Like to have wheat bits and yogurt and protein powder and mix all that in. Too heavy for people when they're going to go and train. And I'm the same. When I'm going to go and swim or I'm going to go to the gym, I like to just whack down a quick protein milk. And they, it's got 30 grams of protein milk and a coffee. And that is deliberate. That's all I do. I have my long black and I have my protein milk. So let's break that down. Why is it that I would do that? So why protein first? Because in your pre-burner or pre-workout, or whatever you want to call it, when you wake up, you are actually in a catabolic state. What does that mean? What it means is your body is eating itself, it's actually digesting its own lean tissue, breaking down muscle. You've been fasting. Muscle protein breakdown is actually elevated. It's eating itself. So if you train without protein, what are you doing? You're actually breaking down. The breakdown actually increases even more. Now, this is not optimal if you want to build muscle or if you care about lean mass. So this is the reason why I put this 25 grams or 30 grams of protein in straight away. Because getting 25 to 30 grams of high quality protein in early stops the muscle protein breakdown. What it does do also is it stimulates muscle protein synthesis and it provides sufficient leucine to trigger the repair pathways. I can promise you there is no advantage to delaying protein. If you think training fastered is more optimal, that is not true because you've got muscle protein breakdown. Now, to explain, when you have protein, we have muscle protein synthesis. That's not exactly what we want. What we want to do is we actually want to prevent muscle protein breakdown. And this is why we need to keep that protein in and have sufficient protein daily to prevent the muscle protein breakdown because it will naturally synthesize and rebuild new muscle if there's protein, there's an amino acid pool in your bloodstream. So what we want is we want protein in first up. As soon as you get up, we want to be putting that protein in. We want to prevent that muscle protein breakdown. There is no advantage. So for those of you that are intermittent fasters, oh, I mean on intermittent fasting, you're actually breaking muscle down and you're not preventing it from breaking down. Oh, but ketones. No, no, you have to be in ketosis, which means you basically have to have not eaten for two days to go into ketosis. Oh, but autophagy. Oh, please. Do you want to know what the best form of autophagy is? Resistance training. That is the best. That's how you recycle dead cells, muscle protein cells. Keep training, recycles the cells. That's autophagy at its best. So get out, eat protein, and train. And that's the best possible form of autophagy you're going to get. There is no advantage to delaying protein into your body. So why milk? Why do I have milk? First of all, it's fluid. It gives me sodium, it gives me potassium, it gives me calcium, it gives me protein, it gives me lactose. Lactose breaks down into glucose and galactose. Glucose provides immediate fuel for training. So now you have protein to protect the muscle, carbohydrate to fuel the performance, and electrolyte to support the hydration. And that is physiology. And why the coffee? Well, because caffeine works. We know that. And I can dose it properly. No proprietary blend, no mystery numbers. I know in milligrams how much caffeine I'm getting. So what does the human body actually need pre-training? Well, it's simple. It needs protein, it needs carbohydrates, it needs fluid, it needs electrolytes, and it needs caffeine. If you desire caffeine, then after training, what do we do? Well, we put protein in. We put protein in, and there's no anabolic window. You don't need to have protein straight away. You've got every three to five hours is enough. But protein again after training. Why? Because it helps with the recovery process, it helps to rebuild the muscle again. Remember, we are trying to prevent muscle protein breakdown. And that supports the repair and the adaptation to the training. That's it. We don't need a fat-burning matrix, and we don't need any miracle, quote-unquote, compounds. The hard truth for you is simple. Fat loss requires a sustained calorie deficit. It needs adequate protein intake to maintain that lean muscle and prevent that muscle protein breakdown. You need resistance training to stimulate that muscle protein synthesis. You need sleep and you need the most important thing of the lot, and that is consistency. Because I can promise you this a 4.2 gram scoop of rubbish in a tub will not override poor nutrition. And stimulation is not fat loss. It just feels like effort. But if you like your pre-workout because it wakes you up, fine. But understand what's doing the work. It's the caffeine. And keep in mind shift workers as well. Those pre-workouts with a lot of caffeine in them, over 200, 250 milligrams, 213 milligrams of caffeine takes up it impacts on subsequent sleep for up to 13 hours. So if you're taking that pre-workout on the way home from work and then trying to sleep, while you might go to sleep, you're not getting the deep restorative sleep, which releases the growth hormone, which helps you to build muscle and prevent muscle protein breakdown and get rid of cortisol and increase melatonin and all of the good things that happen while we're asleep, you don't get that because you had your caffeine too close. You don't go into it. Now, I just want to reiterate this. If you want to do it, knock yourself out. But you're just having really expensive caffeine, flavored caffeine, and that's all your pre-workout is. Spend the money elsewhere. Honestly, so much better because you're wasting money on your pre-workout. It's not doing anything at physiology level. Alright? So keep that in mind. And that's today's podcast. You can get everything you need from the coffee and milk without paying for that flavoured marketing. That's physiology. And physiology does not give a crap about the label on the tub. Let me be the one to tell you, all those bright colours waste of money. I'll catch you on the next one. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.