Should You Eat Before a Morning Workout?
You may be asking yourself, should you eat before a morning workout? Explained by a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
Breakfast is essential for keeping your brain and muscles fuelled throughout the day. Whether this means you are eating it before an early morning workout depends on these five main factors.
5 Tips on Eating Before a Workout
Tip 1: Know your exercise intensity and duration.
Higher intensity exercise requires carbohydrates as the primary fuel source. Eating carbohydrates before a high intensity early morning workout re-stocks your liver and muscle glycogen stores (carbohydrate stores) as well as your blood glucose. Having well stocked glycogen stores allows energy for your central nervous system and your skeletal muscle system to be able to concentrate, focus, stay alert, make quick decisions, quick reaction time and combat early fatigue, loss of power or strength.
Longer duration endurance activities require a decent amount of your glycogen stores. After two hours of moderate exercise, your glycogen stores can be depleted as there are 500g of carbs stored in your muscles and 100g stored in your liver, only 25g stored in your blood glucose. Eating carbohydrates before this activity and during can minimize depletion of glycogen and therefore optimize athletic performance.
If you are working out at a low intensity such as an easy jog, swim, or cycle under an hour or an easy walk or yoga session, then you do not necessarily need to eat before this type of low intensity exercise; however, read on to see if this changes.
Tip 2: Know your timing between waking up and working out.
The timing is important whether you are waking up and sprinting in 15 minutes versus whether you are waking up and have 1 or more hours before your activity. If it is the latter, you can afford longer digestion time and therefore can eat a larger quantity of carbs possibly paired with moderate protein/fat. If you only have 15 minutes, you want to quickly digest carbohydrates such as graham crackers, sports beverages, applesauce, bananas, or white toast.
If you have 3 hours before your activity, you can afford to eat a balanced meal of carbs, protein, and fat because you will have a longer time to digest. This includes a low intensity workout like an easy yoga session as it will combat hunger and help with hydration as food contains electrolytes. Just make sure to sip on water prior to the exercise to stay adequately hydrated.
Tip 3: know your schedule to be able to make time for food beforehand.
Sometimes an omelet with veggies and hash browns 3 hours before your run sounds like a good plan, but you also have a million other chores to get done and this dish is no longer feasible. Prioritize breakfast by knowing your schedule ahead of time so you can prepare overnight oats, chia seed pudding parfait, frozen burrito, or something similar.
Tip 4: Know which foods to choose.
Less than 1 hour till working out, you want easily digestible carbs.
More than 1 hour till working out, you can pair carbs with moderate protein and fat.
What to eat before early morning workout?
Examples of what to eat before an early morning workout:
Easy to digest carbohydrates, sometimes paired with protein/fat
Waffles/ pancakes with ½ banana slices and drizzle of maple syrup
Sourdough toast with thin layer of peanut butter
Rice cakes with nut butter
Low fiber cereal with milk
English muffin with jam
Banana
Apple sauce
The amount of carbohydrates that you eat in your breakfast before an early morning workout depends on how much time you have. For example, if you have an hour, eat a bigger portion of waffles, and add some peanut butter for fat/protein combination. If you have less than 30 minutes, aim for just a carb source like a banana or applesauce.
Tip 5: Know which foods to avoid.
Foods that do not settle well during a workout. These food sources can sit undigested during a workout rather than utilized as energy. This can make us feel sluggish, full bellied, stomach sloshing, muscle cramps and have acid reflux. During exercise blood moves away from our gut and moves toward our working muscles and skin. This change of blood flow causes changes in absorption, secretions, and gastrointestinal motility. To avoid gastrointestinal distress caused by the wrong types of food in the pre-workout meal, avoid or limit the following.
Excess of high fiber foods like beans, lentils, vegetables, high fiber cereal, high fiber breads
Excess of high fat like high fat dairy, high saturated fat animal products like bacon, fried foods like french fries or other greasy foods
Excess of sugar alcohols like sorbitol and erythritol
Conclusion
Eat before an early morning workout unless it is a low intensity activity less than an hour and you aren’t hungry or nauseous. Eating before an early morning workout improves athletic performance by increasing alertness, reaction time, strength, power, and decreases early fatigue and burnout.
Check out my other article that you may find interesting, Best Diet For Athletes.
