The Winning Factor
If you have ever trained for an endurance event, or simply are interested in maximizing your workouts, you probably know the benefits of pre and post-workout fuel. The right combination of food before and after (sometimes even during!) can be the winning factor in how well our bodies respond to exercise and how quickly we recover.
It amazes me that I still hear of some people who don’t eat anything at all before they exercise in fear of the calories. Not only that, but then they will wait hours after to have a snack. The truth of the matter is, eating pre-workout ensures your glycogen stores are available for optimal performance (like putting gas in a car), and eating after a workout refills these glycogen stores so that our bodies can continue on working optimally and not become dehydrated, fatigued or injured.
Many people these days still unfortunately fear carbohydrates and therefore will refuel on protein only, not knowing that consuming pure protein post-workout actually slows hydration and glycogen replenishment. The correct ratio of carbohydrate to protein is a 4:1 ratio (four grams of carbohydrate to one gram of protein), which roughly would be equivalent to one banana with 1/4 cup raw almonds or one banana with two tablespoons of natural style peanut butter. This post-workout snack should be consumed within an hour of working out to properly refuel the body. If you wait too long to eat, your body technically goes into “starvation mode” and starts to feed on itself for fuel, exhausting yourself even more and eating away at the muscles you worked so hard to obtain.
Eating pre-exercise is also equally important and keeps you going strong throughout your workout.
Some ideal pre-exercise snack ideas include:
- 1/2 whole wheat bagel with 1 tbsp nut butter
- small bowl of whole grain cereal with milk or soymilk and fresh berries
- serving of trail mix
- 1 slice whole wheat bread with nut butter
- all natural fig cookies or granola bar
If you are training for an endurance event, its best to stick with the same pre-exercise snack every time you train. You don’t want to try something new on race day only to suffer from severe cramping and stomach pains throughout your event.
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So true. When I was a teenager, I used to go out on double-digit runs, first thing in the a.m, without eating or drinking anything. Needless to say, my performance suffered – but what I noticed most of all was feeling cruddy after the workout, and taking a long time to recover.
Now I’m obsessive about eating an apple with nut butter pre-workout. It’s my “safe” snack that won’t make me sick. And another thing to add to your excellent ideas: for workouts over an hour, bring added fuel. I like Clif goo.
[...] New True/Slant article on pre and post-exercise snacks! [...]
I find it a challenge to eat pre-workout. I get up at 5:30 to hit the gym, and I don’t usually eat much beforehand–maybe coffee with skim milk.
I fuel up afterwards with a good breakfast–green smoothies or whole grain cereals w/fruit.
Will my performance suffer even though my workouts are relatively short (~30-45 min) and negatively impact what I am getting out of them?
I haven’t raced in some time, but when I was racing, I always ate beforehand and refueled mid-race (half-marathons)–but I was more concerned with performance in a race than I am day-to-day.
I haven’t raced — really raced — for some time, though I’m still pretty competitive about my walking. I’ve also recently been diagnosed with celiac disease, and it sometimes seems so is every other person you meet. Rice bread doesn’t stay with you very well, but add some nut butter and bananas and it works every bit as well as bagels & whole wheat.
[...] I shook up my pre-run snack today. With what you ask…COOKIES. After reading Jenna’s article yesterday and the Eat Like a Triathlete post on Runner’s Kitchen, I knew figs would be a great [...]