What to eat before working out?

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

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 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.