One of the most common questions we get at Prototype Nutrition is “what do I eat before after I workout?” In this blog post, we are going to cover ALL things related to nutrition before your workout and after your workout!

We have all had those days where we feel amazing during our workout and somewhere we feel absolutely drained. This is going to happen from time to time and it doesn’t always come down to purely what you put in your body. But for a lot of people, what we put in our bodies can make a world of difference as it relates to our energy AND to our performance.

Below are the BIGGEST things that can either positively or negatively impact your training!

The things that we should do throughout the day as well as before training is to make sure we are well hydrated, have plenty of amino acids in our body, and get a good night’s sleep.

Additionally, when and what you eat before your workout depends on what time of the day you’re training at. Some people are early risers and like to work out before they start their day. For these people, you might get up at 4:30 AM and start your workout at 5 AM. For those folks that workout in the afternoon or have a reasonable amount of time between when they wake up and when they workout, they can put more into their bodies before their workout.

The big thing for both these groups is you need to do is to make sure you are hydrated. Don’t drink a ton of water before you go to bed though, that will impact your sleep and cause you to wake up in the middle of the night. Remember, poor sleep = poor energy and less recovery.

For the early morning people, it may be difficult to get a full meal in or it may be uncomfortable for you to eat then start exercising. So let’s talk about when and what we should specifically be eating and how it works!

With protein, we are ideally consuming .8g-1g per pound of body weight and distributing that throughout the day fairly evenly. We can make this even simpler by just trying to focus on eating from a variety of sources in a relative portion size that meets your needs. Timing pre/post-workout doesn’t matter as much if we are focused on getting our protein requirements throughout the day vs in just 1 or 2 feedings. The reason why it’s important to have protein throughout the day is that we want to have those amino acids available for training, recovery, and to help us maintain/gain muscle. This is something we need outside of training just as much during! So don’t worry if you don’t have that protein shake immediately after your workout, the bigger component here is eating enough throughout the day.

Pre-workout (before your workout) you want a higher carbohydrate intake to make sure you have enough energy, topped off your glycogen stores (stored carbohydrates in the body), and have enough blood glucose to perform your best during your workout.

Carbohydrates are your body’s main energy source and can help with performance especially on longer or higher intensity workouts. Your body stores carbohydrates as reserved energy for your hard intensive forms of exercise in the form of glycogen and this is why it’s also important to have some after you train.

If you use your reserves in training you’ll want to make sure you feed yourself so you do well next training session as well!

Dietary Fat interferes with how quickly carbohydrates are processed in the bloodstream which is the main reason we eat carbs before training. If delayed, you might feel sluggish, can be intensive to digest, which can cause us to feel uncomfortable while training or nauseous.

Have your fats with your meals and ideally, not before to train. You want your pre-workout carbohydrates to hit you so you feel alert and ready to train your best! We still want to get enough dietary fat in the day just not right before training. YOUR ENTIRE DAY SHOULDN’T BE LOW FAT, JUST BEFORE TRAINING.

Depending on what time of day you train (morning/evening/night time) may determine your meal size because of how long you have to digest. If you train at 5 am you might want something smaller because you might not have the time to have a larger meal or simply not hungry. If you do eat right before your workout, prioritize having some carbohydrates & protein (if you haven’t had any protein in several hours) and minimize fat intake.

Early Morning examples:

Evening Examples:

With any meal you have, it’s always a good idea to get into the habit of having a glass of water before you eat. It’s a fantastic idea to make sure you do this before you train! If you drink very little water throughout the day and drink a glass before training you’re still going to be dehydrated so best to do this throughout the day! The body is over 60% water so even being slightly dehydrated can impact your workout so prioritize this!

In a perfect world, everyone would get 7-9 hours of sleep but that’s not always the case especially if you have young kids! The big things if you aren’t getting enough sleep and getting more is in your control, is that sleep impacts our cognitive function and is so important for us to feel fully energized. We can have perfect nutrition but if we are getting 4-5 hours of sleep consistently, our performance is going to suffer. Do your best to get more if you can and you’ll feel even stronger in your workouts!

Summary

The post Should you eat before your workout? appeared first on Prototype Training Systems.