Pre-Workout: What to eat before you workout
So you have your equipment on hand, your sneekers tied and your water ready. Does that mean you and your body are prepared for the workout that’s coming? Not quite right… What about a pre-workout meal?
Should You Eat Before Exercising?
To eat or not to eat before a workout has been one ongoing question being asked in the fitness world. And is there an answer? Actually there is! Research has shown that excersicing in a fasted state (without eating before) can have fat-loss and metabolic benefits for low impact workouts that are less than one hour, such as walking or yoga. So if this is the type of excersice that you are gonna be doing, good news! Actually not eating anything before your workout can be the best option for you and you can jump right into it! But what about high intensity excersice such as running, weights or HIIT?
If you are looking into lifting weights, running some miles or burning some major calories, you are gonna need some pre-fueling. Think about it like preparing your car for a ride. If you don’t put the proper fuel, it is not gonna run the way you want it to. A good pre-workout is going to help you in your preformance, help you burn more calories, push harder and build more muscle. One hour to half an hour before you should be having your pre-workout meal. This ensures that your body has had enough time to get energy. It also avoids you being too full for the workout, but also not so long that you are getting hungry again.
What Should You Eat?
This is the important quiestion, right? For you to release all your potential in your next workout a mix of carbohydrates and protein is the best choice. Carbs are going to give you the actual energy for your workout. It is important that they are complex and slow release carbs, so that the energy is sustained during the entire workout.
Some great examples of this are oats, whole grain bread and rice. Making a porridge for breakfast for example, is a great pre-workout meal before your morning run.
Fruits are other great components for a Pre-Workout meal! They are also high in carbs and will give you a quicker souce of energy, providing you the first push for your training. Best ones for this would be bananas, berries, oranges or apples. Bananas even have the extra power of helping you prevent cramps with their high content of potassium!
Last but not least, your pre-workout should also contain some protein. Keep in mind it should not be the main component of your meal. Right now your meal should be more focused on carbs and you want just some protein to prevent muscle damage -the high protein meal should come after the workout. What kind of protein should you be looking for? Something like eggs, greek yoghurt or ham should be giving you the perfect amount of protein for before your excersice.
Overall I would recomend a Pre-Workout Smoothie to get all of these components before you train, especially if you are a morning trainer. I feel like it gives you all you need with the least effort. Here a smoothie with oats, banana and greek yoghurt are the perfect mix. You can also check this Pre-Workout Smoothie recipe I have prepared for you!
How big should a Pre-Workout meal be?
It depends on a number of factors. What kind of workout you are doing and what kind of meal do you want it to be? If you are looking into weight-loss, keep the meal under the amount of calories you are trying to burn. Even though it is true that a pre-workout will help you burn more calories during your training, you don’t want to pre-eat it all. For workouts between 1 and 2 hours, keep your meal between 200 and 250 calories. This so that you fuel your body, without the meal being the only thing you burn. If you are trying to build more muscle, you can have a meal that is bit bigger, around 300 or 400 calories. You can even add up on the carbs so that your musles have as much energy to work as possible.
This also depends on what kind of meal it is for you. Do you want something small so that you have a big post-workout breakfast? Is it the middle of the day and you are having a pre-workout lunch? You can then play around with pre and post calories depending on when you are having your meal.
What about supplements?
As you know, I acutally believe that unless you are profesional body-builder, you can achieve all your fitness goals, both weight-loss and muscle building without any type of supplement. All of the components of a complete pre-workout meal can be easily found in clean foods, making it unnecesary for you to add anything else. Also take into account that these supplements, such as whey protein, can add a considerable amount of calories to your meal. Additionaly, your body can’t absorbe the nutrients as well as it absorbs real food.
Rounding it all up, Pre-Workouts are really important for you to release all your power in your next training. Keep it high in carbs such as oats and fruits, and include protein such as yoghurt or eggs. Eat it around 1 hour before your workout and be ready to crush it!