What to eat before working out?

tony2545

What do you eat before your workout & how far in advance do you eat before hand?

NorthCascades

A balanced diet, and continuously.

firef1y72

tony2545 wrote: »

What do you eat before your workout & how far in advance do you eat before hand?

Depends what time I'm working out and what I'm doing.
If it's a 6am (or earlier session) then I'll have a banana just before I leave (so 30min before), which will do me for upto 1.5hrs run.
If it's a later morning session, a race or a longer run then I'll have some overnight oats at least an hour before I start and sometimes a nakd bar during.
With evening classes I generally have a snack before/inbetween but no main meals until after. But I workout to an intense level and food would make me feel sick if eaten in the hour before

sijomial

What's your workout?
Where does it sit within your overall eating pattern?
What makes you think eating to coincide with your workout is even necessary for you?

Yesterday I did a two hour cycle ride of 32 miles, no breakfast, had a banana before I set out, drank water to stay hydrated, roughly 1,000 calorie burn. Ate my normal lunch when I got back. Just my normal exercise and matched with normal eating.

In contrast for a big and very long duration event I'll plan my nutrition for several days in advance and eat to a precise schedule on the day for optimal results.

For weight training it just fits in my schedule without any special planning or eating, personally for me fed or fasted weight training makes no performance difference.

AnnPT77

I have the cast-iron digestion system of a true genetic peasant. Mostly, I eat breakfast about 20-30 minutes before rowing or spin class. I've learned that I need slightly more carbs for the rowing vs. spin, or I feel ravenous after, so on rowing days, I put my peanut butter on an Ezekiel pita rather than a Coco Lite Pop Cake (6" 20-cal cracker-like thing).

Sadly, my energy systems are not as robustly peasant-ish as my digestion, so I do need to eat before vigorous workouts of non-trivial duration: If I try to do them fasted, I feel miserable, and don't perform well. Other than that, I'll maybe eat little something carb-ish before doing a workout at other times of day, if I feel a little draggy going into it.

I've learned that if I do a couple of workouts back to back (I did spin class immediately followed by a kettlebell class for a while, for example), I do better if I have a small snack, like a tiny boxed chocolate milk, or an applesauce packet, in between; it helps with my intensity in workout #2, and my energy level for the balance of the day, it seems like. On bike rides or on-water rows expected to be over an hour, I often take something with me like a granola bar or some trail mix, just in case. Sometimes I eat it, sometimes I don't.

In the heat of summer, for longer activity outdoors with lots of sweating, electrolytes can be relevant. This is not something that comes up for me a lot, but usually I deal with it by taking a sports drink with me in addition to water, or mixing some sports-drink powder at high dilution into my water (like Gatorade). I don't do massive length edurance workouts, though.

So, my advice would be: Experiment to see what you need to make your exercise go well (good energy, no nausea), within a context where you work to get sound all-day nutrition, including enough protein, enough healthy fats, plenty of fiber and micronutrients, and whatever carb level optimizes your personal appetite and energy level.

tony2545

Thanks everyone. I'm just getting back into weight training after 20 years & feel like a total beginner. There's so much information out there that it gets confusing. I'll just see how my body reacts & adjust things as I go.

sijomial

tony2545 wrote: »

Thanks everyone. I'm just getting back into weight training after 20 years & feel like a total beginner. There's so much information out there that it gets confusing. I'll just see how my body reacts & adjust things as I go.

Then for you timing is of minimal importance compared to your overall diet and the quality of your training - would suggest focussing on getting those two "big ticket items" optimised.