Why Should I Eat Breakfast Before A Workout.
A Day In The Life of a PT | Diet | Lifestyle | Nutrition
Posted on November 14, 2014 by Jenny Cromack
One of the peak times to train our personal training clients is first thing in the morning. You can guarantee that there will be at least half of the team already putting a client through their paces by 6:30am in one of our personal training studios most weekdays.
We appreciate that it takes some dedication to drag your butt out of bed and get out for a run or go to the gym at this time in the morning, but if you’re showing the dedication to do this then you need to make sure you’re correctly fuelled so you can put the required amount of effort into your workout and get the results you want. So this blog is going to look at whether you should eat breakfast before a workout.
I’m going to look at some research around but also look at some of my own personal experience of working with my personal training clients.
We’ve all heard it before…..exercising in a fasted state is better for fat burning, but is it really?
In 2013 some research was published by the British Journal of Nutrition which in a nutshell said those people who exercised without eating breakfast burned 20% more body fat than those people who had eaten breakfast. There are other research papers too which suggest that training on an empty stomach is better for fat loss. After hearing this everyone ditched their breakfast before their early morning workouts in the hope they would ditch their love handles.
However, this research was only performed using steady state training at a low-intensity. Now, we all now that HIIT is a better method of fat burning than performing steady state training. Could you perform HIIT on an empty stomach? I don’t think so! Therefore you will crash and burn during a session and therefore burn less calories, less fat….Operation ‘Look Amazing’ all of a sudden becomes less of a reality. We know that HIIT promotes a high excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, EPOC, which results in more calories being burned following a training session but eating before exercise also promotes substantial increases in EPOC as you are able to train harder and most of these calories come from fat. Now Operation ‘Look Amazing’ become more of a reality.
Now, I’m not saying you should sit down and feast for hours before your morning workout, however personally I think you should have some fuel inside you before a workout otherwise you cannot not train effectively and at the intensity required to achieve your goals. The number of times I have seen people flag halfway through their workout because they have tried to train on an empty stomach is unbelievable. I also think this is a reason why some people don’t achieve their goals….they are flogging themselves in gym but because they haven’t fuelled properly they don’t achieve their goals.
What Should I Eat For Breakfast Before A Workout?
Ideally you should consume food which has:
* A small amount of slow release carbs. If your goal is fat loss then don’t go to mad on the carbs as you are only topping up your muscle glyocgen levels which will limit fat burning. If you are a performance/endurance athlete you may need to take a higher amount of carbohydrate on board depending on your training schedule.
* Try to avoid quick release carbs.
* Eat foods high in Omega 3, therefore walnuts, almonds and salmon are amazing pre-workout breakfasts.
Reasons for why people don’t eat breakfast before they exercise….
1. I don’t have the time to make breakfast – honestly, it’s not that hard have a small handful of nuts about 30 minutes before your workout, no preparation required there!
2. It gives me a stitch…..try getting up 15 minutes before and see if this makes a difference. It might also be down to the food you’re eating. Chomping down a bowl of porridge and then going out for a run 20 minutes later is probably likely to give you a stitch so stick to something lighter.
3. I’m worried I won’t lose weight. Ultimately, your weight loss is about calories in vs calories out. Ok, there are other influences too, but if you’re eating more than you burn you will gain weight. So if you have a snack/breakfast before a workout just remember to account for this in your daily calorie intake. Question yourself….you can really give 100% to your HIIT session on an empty stomach?
Overall I would recommend, no matter what time of morning you are exercising that you have a small snack or breakfast beforehand for optimal results.
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