What happens physiologically when you miss a meal after an intense workout?

[bensanon]

The motivation for this question is what happened to me today. I've been losing weight at about 3-4 pounds a week for about 2.5 months now. Today, I ate about 1200 kcal and then went to the gym. I ran hard and burned probably pretty close to 2000 kcal. I was going to eat after I finished but got derailed with work. Ideally, I would have had something to snack on until the next meal like jerky but I didn't have anything and couldn't eat until about 3.5 hours after I finished my workout.

I'm sure I used up all my glycogen stores and was probably burning fat but what about protein? Would this have an adverse affect on muscle until I could get protein in me or carbs or fat? What effect does the timing of a meal after (and before) a workout have on building muscle? Can it be said that I robbed myself of the benefits of the exercise on my muscles because I couldn't eat for awhile? What is breaking down and when and where is basically what I'm asking and what effect does that have?

Thanks for any thoughts and posts on this!

 

[Trusylver]

The science on a post workout nutritional window is mixed unless your training was fasted the you should not see any real adverse effect.

this is a scientific review of existing studies looking at nutrition timing.

Nutrient timing revisited: is there a post-exercise anabolic window?

 

[overlandflyer]

UREA is an end product of protein metabolism and can be measured. when your body runs out of glycogen stores, UREA level drops dramatically. your body burns very little protein when in ketosis.