To Eat or Not to Eat Before a Workout The decision to eat or not to eat prior to a workout can be a difficult one. It varies from person to person and workout to workout. Fortunately, there’s a checklist of things to consider the next time you’re trying to decide whether to grab a quick snack before heading out. 1) The type of workout: Is it a hard workout, a longer workout, or an easy recovery workout? 2) The timing: Is it early in the morning, mid-day, or late in the evening after a full day of work? 3) What your stomach can tolerate: Do you usually eat before a workout? The role of a pre-workout meal The pre-workout meal provides opportunities to: Refill your liver glycogen after an overnight fast and minimize the effects of hypoglycemia Provide accessible and usable carbohydrate/fuel for the early stages of the workout Maximize muscle glycogen stores for use in the later stages of the workout Top off your fluids and help prevent dehydration Settle your stomach by absorbing some of the stomach juices and hold off hunger until the workout is completed. When to consider a pre-workout meal In general, for harder workouts lasting longer than 60 minutes, it’s a good idea to have eaten a meal within the past 3 to 4 hours or a smaller snack within the past 1 to 2 hours. Typically shorter workouts can be done without a snack however, if activity is done early in the morning you may consider a small snack to refill your liver glycogen and stabilize blood sugar warding off dizzy spells, blurred vision, lightheadedness and irritability. Workouts in the afternoon or evening are a little different because it’s likely you’ve been eating throughout the day and have full liver and muscle glycogen stores. If you’re someone who considers yourself to have digestion problems and don’t like to eat too soon before a workout, eat a well-balanced carbohydrate-rich breakfast (for afternoon workouts) or lunch (for evening workouts) at least 3 to 4 hours before your workout. Stomachs were not created equal The final consideration is what your stomach is able to tolerate. You may have to use trial and error to find what works best for you. Keep in mind the closer you get to a workout or the more intense the workout, the less your body will be able to digest. Reasons not to eat before a run Exercising on an empty stomach during low-intensity exercise allows a person to burn more body fat. However, trying to workout at a high intensity on an empty stomach will only lead to failure. Once your body burns through its glycogen stores, the only response is to severely decrease the intensity of the exercise. Know that just because you are burning more body fat during exercise doesn’t mean you will lose body fat overall. All too often people reward themselves with too many calories at the end of the workout where a pre-snack can give you the energy needed to workout longer and harder, thus burning more calories overall.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:45:21 +0000