An apple? What about a sandwich? So many possibilities to choose from, but what's the best option? Well, much of that will largely depend on the type of workout you are going to do! Nutrient timing and what to eat before a workout is covered in chapter 12 of the NASM Nutrition Coach Certification Course.

Check it out! First, let's review the energy system basics. When we exercise at various intensities, our body will utilize various fuel sources.

The first form of energy that is available is free ATP in our muscles, which supplies about a few seconds of energy. Next, we have our phosphocreatine system which provides up to 15 seconds of energy. After that, we enter into anaerobic glycolysis, which maxes out after about 2 minutes, and once exercise exceeds 2 minutes, we enter aerobic glycolysis which can supply energy for hours.

To power these different energy systems, our body needs fuel. The two main macronutrients that will supply energy to these systems are carbohydrates and fats. Fats can only be metabolized in time to provide sufficient fuel during aerobic glycolysis.

However, when are these systems active? Well as you can imagine, the duration of each system gives hint to the type of workout in which the energy system would be dominant. High intensity, short, power bouts will mostly utilize the phosphocreatine and anaerobic glycolysis pathways.

Hence, carbohydrates will be the main macronutrient to supply the body with energy for these types of workouts. Long duration events will require the use of carbohydrates and fats for fuel.

As aforementioned, carbohydrates are the predominant fuel source for high-intensity or prolonged exercise. at least 1 hour before maximizing glycogen stores. However, research has also shown consumption of g of carbohydrates 30 minutes to 1 hour before exercise can increase carbohydrate availability towards the end of an exhaustive workout and prevent early fatigue.

What if you have an important event coming up? Can you increase carb consumption earlier in the day and still have enough fuel for the competition?

For anyone participating in a high-intensity event, it is recommended to consume 2. The rule of thumb for choosing carbohydrate sources is the closer you are eating to your workout, the simpler the carbohydrate source should be.

Simple as in a source that breaks down very easily and has little to no fiber! Incorporating complex sources such as whole grains or legumes is more beneficial when eating hours before exercise.

Is protein safe to consume before a workout? The answer to that question is that there is never a bad time to consume protein! However, protein is not an energy source during exercise — it plays role in recovery and regeneration. Consumption of protein before exercise can promote positive muscle protein balance and mitigate muscle damage and post-exercise soreness.

Daily needs can vary between 1. In regards to timing, research suggests the most pragmatic approach for protein consumption is to consume g every hours. Since protein can be difficult to digest quickly, it would be beneficial to consume more processed sources in doses of g 30 minutes before your workout.

Examples would include whey protein or amino since these are in their simplest form. Fats take the longest to be metabolized and can also slow the digestion of other foods when consuming mixed meals.

Due to this, it is recommended to include fats in a meal hours before exercise. When feeding windows are limited to an hour or less, carbohydrates are going to be the best fuel source for immediate energy. Research has not yet suggested specific fat recommendations before exercise, however, general recommendations range between With all this information, how can we apply this to food?

Below are examples of various pre-workout meals you can consume at various points before exercise following the guidelines discussed in this blog! Remember, servings are largely dependent on the size of the individual. black beans, 5oz roasted broccoli - 4oz salmon, 1 c.

There is no extreme harm that will come to you if you work out fast! Our body has energy reserves in our liver, muscle glycogen, and adipose tissue that will allow us to perform work even in the absence of food! However, your last meal will largely depend on how much available energy you have since glycogen stores are limited and are depleted first when performing an exercise.

Another downside to fasted workouts is that it leads to increased muscle breakdown. Unsaturated fats, for example, provide a range of health benefits. Ideally, a person should eat a meal rich in complex carbohydrates and protein around 2—3 hours before exercising.

Alternately, a person may prefer a smaller meal that is mostly made up of simple carbohydrates. In this case, they need only wait for 30—60 minutes before working out.

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Medical News Today. Health Conditions Health Products Discover Tools Connect. What to eat before a workout to lose weight and build muscle. Medically reviewed by Katherine Marengo LDN, R. Protein Carbohydrates Fats Pre-workout meal Foods to eat before exercising depend on the type of workout and individual goals.

Share on Pinterest Consuming high-protein foods such as salmon before a workout can increase gains in muscle mass. Share on Pinterest People should consume complex carbohydrates, such as beans, hours before working out.

Share on Pinterest Avocados are rich in unsaturated fats, which are necessary for a balanced diet. When to eat a pre-workout meal. How we reviewed this article: Sources. Medical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations.

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Eating before training fuels your body for ideal performance. Failing to eat before you work out means you are missing a huge opportunity to keep your body in an anabolic muscle-building state. By paying special attention to nutrition before you train, you can also maximize how much of your food is used to build lean mass, and minimize how much of it becomes body fat.

Eating the right foods before a workout makes all the difference. The idea of pre-workout nutrition is to give your body what it needs to perform at maximum intensity, and prepare your muscles for growth. A pre-workout meal should increase glycogen levels in the body and help prevent catabolism.

Protein is made up of individual amino acids. These are the building blocks of muscle, help prevent catabolism, and fight off hunger cravings. Calories from carbohydrates affect your blood-sugar levels, giving you a quick burst of energy if they are simple and quick-digesting, and lasting energy if they are more complex.

Fats help maintain optimal hormone levels and provide slow-burning fuel for longer sessions. Your pre-workout fuel should be composed of medium- to fast-digesting proteins and slower-digesting carbs. Since fat delays food leaving the stomach, known as "gastric emptying" it can slow down your body's uptake of nutrients and should be avoided pre- and post-workout.

Pre-workout meal timing is an important piece of the picture. For most people, the perfect time for a pre-workout snack or meal is hours before training. This depends on your metabolism, how big the meal is, and perhaps what type of exercise you're doing. The fuel you ingest before training will only be available in your bloodstream for a few hours, so you don't want to wait too long—like hours—before working out or you'll lose those pre-workout nutrients.

However, you also don't want to cram down a huge, veggie-packed meal right before Tabata cycle sprints. Eating an hour or two before you work out provides the perfect opportunity to feed your muscles strategically while you work out.

During resistance exercise, your muscles will fill or "pump up" with blood and become extremely sensitive to the nutrients you've consumed. This is why pre-workout nutrition is so important. What you ingest can go straight to the areas being trained.

Eating mid-workout doesn't make much sense, not only because it's inconvenient, but also because your body would expend energy digesting food when it should be focused on the workout. That said, you definitely burn fuel during intense training. During a heavy training session your body uses up plenty of carbs, which are broken down into glycogen.

That's the fuel your muscles need for exercise, and without it performance suffers. You also need amino acids, which is why your body breaks down any available protein when you lift.

Topping up your stores while training helps spare glycogen, and decreases catabolism by providing a steady source of amino acids. A proper pre-workout nutrition plan can take care of all of this. By timing the pre-workout meal appropriately, you should already have these essential macronutrients for growth entering your bloodstream when you walk into the gym, ready to feed those hungry muscles.

If this is the case, then all you need during your session is water. When you exercise for long periods of time, your body can enter a catabolic state and end up breaking down the muscle tissue you're trying to build.

Sipping a protein shake during your workout helps counteract this protein breakdown, because it provides the body with exactly what it needs.

During long training sessions, consuming a shake can be anti-catabolic. This is why BCAAs are a popular intra-workout drink. They immediately provide you with essential amino acids and energy, and do not require any digesting. Remember, the last thing you want is to unnecessarily divert blood to your digestive tract!

While it is not necessary to eat during a workout if your pre-workout strategy is in check, there's nothing wrong with consuming a shake or amino acids during your session, provided your stomach can handle it and the amount you consume does not require a lot of digesting.

This is especially true if you prefer longer, more intense training sessions. While it is not necessary to eat during a workout if your pre-workout strategy is in check, there's nothing wrong with consuming a shake or amino acids during your workout, provided your stomach can handle it and the amount you consume does not require a lot of digesting.

This is especially true if you prefer longer, more intense workouts. If you are serious about lifting and you want the best results, proper post-workout nutrition is essential.

Refueling your body after a workout is one of the most important parts of building muscle and recovering. If you don't eat the right foods after training, or you don't eat them at the right time, your performance the next time will suffer, your gains will not be as good as they could be, and you could end up losing mass along the way.

Plus, you're setting yourself up for extra soreness—not fun. The most important reason to eat something after you work out is to elicit an insulin response.

Insulin is a highly anabolic hormone, and spiking it halts protein breakdown and helps encourage protein synthesis. Skipping this meal means you will miss out on these anabolic effects.

You will only encourage further protein breakdown, which over time leads to a loss of mass. To put it simply: Eating after you work out helps builds muscle and end protein breakdown for better recovery.

After an intense training session, your glycogen stores are depleted. Refilling them halts protein breakdown and increases protein synthesis. As opposed to pre-workout nutrition, where complex carbohydrates are preferred, your carbs here should be simple and easy to digest in order to illicit an insulin response to build muscle, stave off soreness, and recover more quickly.

The best choices for immediately after the gym are fast-digesting proteins and faster-digesting, moderate-to-high-glycemic carbs. Some athletes prefer gels or chews to replace carbohydrates during extended activities. These sports supplements are formulated with a specific composition of nutrients to rapidly supply carbohydrates and electrolytes.

Most provide about 25 g of carbohydrate per serving and should be consumed with water to speed digestion and prevent cramping. To improve fitness and endurance, we must anticipate the next episode of activity as soon as one exercise session ends.

That means focusing on recovery, one of the most important-and often overlooked-aspects of proper sports nutrition. An effective nutrition recovery plan supplies the right nutrients at the right time. Recovery is the body's process of adapting to the previous workload and strengthening itself for the next physical challenge.

Nutritional components of recovery include carbohydrates to replenish depleted fuel stores, protein to help repair damaged muscle and develop new muscle tissue, and fluids and electrolytes to rehydrate. A full, rapid recovery supplies more energy and hydration for the next workout or event, which improves performance and reduces the chance of injury.

Training generally depletes muscle glycogen. To maximize muscle glycogen replacement, athletes should consume a carbohydrate-rich snack within this minute window. The recommendation for rapidly replenishing glycogen stores is to take in foods providing 1. For a pound athlete, that equates to between 68 and g of carbs or ~ 4.

Since this can be difficult to consume in whole foods shortly after activity, liquid and bar supplements may be useful and convenient after exercise.

Consuming smaller amounts of carbohydrates more frequently may be prudent if the previous recommendation leaves the athlete feeling too full. Bananas are a great source of healthy carbs , if you didn't know! Muscle tissue repair and muscle building are important for recovery.

Whether you're focusing on endurance or strength training, taking in protein after a workout provides the amino acid building blocks needed to repair muscle fibers that get damaged and catabolized during exercise, and to promote the development of new muscle tissue.

Recent research has further demonstrated that a similar amount of protein approximately g after resistance exercise may even benefit athletes on calorie-restricted diets who also want to maintain lean body mass Areta et al.

It is important to note that some literature emphasizing extremely high levels of protein intake-well beyond these recommendations-for strength training may be dated and lack quality research Spendlove et al. Virtually all weight lost during exercise is fluid, so weighing yourself without clothes before and after exercise can help gauge net fluid losses.

It is important to restore hydration status before the next exercise period. However, water may be all you need if exercising for less than 1 hour at a low intensity. While these recommendations are a good starting point, there are no absolute sports nutrition rules that satisfy everyone's needs…so paying attention to how you feel during exercise and how diet affects performance is of utmost importance.

You may have to use different timing and alternate routines to create a nutrition and exercise combo that works best. Timing certainly is critical in sports nutrition, and optimizing that can make all the difference!

Read also: Muscle Clocks - The Value of Synchronized Training. Fast fix: You can positively affect event outcomes by eating the right foods in the right amounts at the right times. A good way to start recovery is to consume a snack with carbohydrates and a moderate amount of protein, plus fluids and sodium, within 30 minutes after exercise.

If you have no appetite post-exercise, a recovery beverage may be a good option. To recover quickly and completely, your body needs healthy fuel like the choices shown here-beginning within 30 minutes of your session's end.

Alencar, M. Increased meal frequency attenuates fat-free mass losses and some markers of health status with a portion-controlled weight loss diet. Nutrition Research, 35 5 , American College of Sports Medicine.

ACSM position stand. Exertional heat illness during training and competition. Areta, J. Reducing resting skeletal muscle protein synthesis is rescued by resistance exercise and protein ingestion following short-term energy deficit.

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Carbohydrate-supplement form and exercise performance. International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 18 2 , Dunford, M. Nutrition for Sport and Exercise 2nd ed. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing. Rosenbloom, C. Sports Nutrition: A Practice Manual for Professionals 5th ed.

Chicago: American Dietetic Association. Schisler, J. Running to maintain cardiovascular fitness is not limited by short-term fasting or enhanced by carbohydrate supplementation. Smith, A. Wardlaw's Contemporary Nutrition 10th ed.

New York: Morgan-Hill. Spendlove, J. Dietary intake of competitive bodybuilders. Sports Medicine, 45 7 , Lee Murphy, MPH, RD, LDN, has been an instructor in the department of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, since Before that, she worked as a community nutritionist, speaker and health educator.

org Fitness CPT Nutrition CES Sports Performance Workout Plans Wellness. Nutrition American Fitness Magazine Nutrient Timing: Pre and Post-Workout Questions Answered! Does Fast-and-Burn Work for Weight Loss? Training and Nutrient Timing Before Events A diet plan is crucial for maximizing daily workouts and recovery, especially in the lead-up to the big day.

WHY Eat Before a workout? WHAT to Eat Before a workout The majority of nutrients in a pre workout meal should come from carbohydrates, as these macronutrients immediately fuel the body. Read more: What to Eat Before a Workout WHEN to Eat Before a workout?

effective Eating Before a workout Preworkout foods should not only be easily digestible, but also easily and conveniently consumed. should you eating During a workout? workout recovery basics and nutrition To improve fitness and endurance, we must anticipate the next episode of activity as soon as one exercise session ends.

When to Start Replenishing Carbs AFTER exercise Training generally depletes muscle glycogen. What About PROTEIN?

REHYDRATE Effectively With Fluids and Sodium Virtually all weight lost during exercise is fluid, so weighing yourself without clothes before and after exercise can help gauge net fluid losses.

Listen to Your Body's Timing Signals While these recommendations are a good starting point, there are no absolute sports nutrition rules that satisfy everyone's needs…so paying attention to how you feel during exercise and how diet affects performance is of utmost importance.

Consume only small amounts of protein; limit fats and fiber see these foods that are high in fiber that you should avoid! Hydration: At least 4 hours before an activity, aim for milliliters of water per kilogram of body weight.

Timing: Ideal for most people is to eat hours before an activity, up to about 1, nutritious calories. Consume calories if lead time is much shorter e. Drinks or smoothies are preferred if you're starting in less than 60 minutes.

Cool down, chow down: Don't skimp on food and fluids after a workout.