Episode 41: What to Eat Before You Work Out

Trainer Tips

Feb 27

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Hey there! 👋 I'm Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains), personal trainer and host of the Coaching Corner podcast. In this episode, we’re talking all about how to fuel your gains before you train.

What you eat before exercising significantly impacts your performance and energy levels during your workouts. On the one hand, eating the wrong thing before you train (or too close to the start of your workout) can leave you feeling sluggish and nauseated while you exercise. On the other hand, not eating at all can lead to low energy, underperformance, and even dizziness or increased risk of passing out (not good 🙅‍♀️).

In this podcast episode, I give some guidelines on what to eat before you train. When deciding what to eat before your workouts, you need to consider the timing of your meal relative to your workout:

If you are eating 2 hours or more before a workout, eat a normal meal following the healthy plate model. This should include a balanced mix of vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains.
For meals within the two-hour to 30-minute window before a workout, prioritize easily digestible carbohydrates and a moderate amount of lean protein (10-25 grams).
If you’re eating within the 30-minute window before your workout, keep it to easily digestible carbohydrates (like fruit or gummy snacks) and avoid fat and too much protein

Also be sure to drink plenty of water before your workouts to give your body the hydration it needs to perform its best.

Click below to see the collection of pre-workout snacks that I created for my Gains Club members. You can download a PDF of the recipe collection to keep in your kitchen whenever you need a quick and nutritious pre-workout snack:

Download Pre-Workout Snack Recipes

I’d love to have you in the Gains Club membership! Each week I post new content to help you improve your health and fitness--including meal plans, workout routines, fat loss tips, recipes, and more. Click here to sign up.

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(00:00):
If you have been following me for a while, you'll know that one of the things that I argue is that getting in shape or getting healthy is just as much about what you eat as it is about how you train and how you exercise. One of the questions that a lot of my clients have, my personal training clients is what to eat before they work out. So in today's podcast, I'm going to be sharing some tips for you on what to eat before you work out. Eating the right things before your workout can help you to stay energized for your workout and perform your best. Eating the wrong thing before you out though can cause some major issues like upset stomach or cramps at the same time. It's generally not best to work out on an empty stomach. So let's talk about how to fuel your body before you work out.
(00:54)
Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. My name is Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains, and in this podcast I share tips and guidance for how to make progress in your fitness journey. And before we get into it, if you are watching this on YouTube, make sure that you like this video and leave a comment if you have any questions or things that you think of during the course of the episode. If you are listening to this podcast, thank you. Make sure that you also subscribe so that you always get notified whenever there's a new episode. Without further ado, let's talk about it. What should you eat before you train, before we talk about what you should eat before you train, we really need to talk about time period, right? So when you're going to be eating plays a key role in what you should eat before you work out.
(01:40)
So if you are planning on eating two hours or more before you work out, then you should just eat like you normally do following the healthy plate model. As a reminder, the healthy plate model is a model of healthy eating that was issued shortly after the 2015 guidelines for Americans on healthy Eating, and this is a good depiction of what you should aim to see on your plate whenever you go to cook or order some food for yourself on half of the plate, you want to have one to two servings of vegetables, or you can have one serving of vegetables and one serving of fruit on the other side of the plate. You want to aim for a good source of lean protein. That's protein sources that are low in saturated fat. These are things like tofu and Tempe if you're vegetarian or things like chicken breast or white meat and low fat cuts of beef and pork and other animal sources of protein.
(02:36)
And then on the last remaining quarter of your plate, you should have either a starchy vegetable like potatoes or corn or you can have a grains based food. That's something made with grains like wheat. So you could have whole grain bread or pasta, rice. Generally speaking, you want the majority of the time if you're eating grains, you want this to be a source of whole grains. So if you are eating two hours before you train or more just eat like you normally do and follow the healthy plate model. This will ensure that you have the nutrients that your body needs to feel its best and the energy, the clean energy that your body needs to perform its best during your workouts. Now if you are eating within that two hour window before, you're going to be working out up to about 30 minutes before you work out.
(03:27)
So two hours to 30 minutes before your training session, you want to really prioritize a good source of carbohydrates and a little bit of protein. Carbohydrates are your body's number one source of fuel and energy and they're the primary source of energy, especially when you are working out. You don't want to eat something that's too complex for your body to break down so that it isn't able to access the energy while you're training. So simple to digest carbohydrates are things like fruits and whole grains. This will allow you to have a steady supply of energy that your body needs while you're training. So for example, you could have a banana or another type of piece of fruit. You could go for some oatmeal or whole grain toast or some rice cakes. All of these are really good sources of easy to digest natural sugars, which will give your body the energy that it needs while you're training within that two hour to 30 minute window.
(04:25)
You also want to prioritize getting in a good source of protein, but you don't want to eat too too much because again, you want to make sure that it's something that your body's going to easily be able to digest. You don't want to fill up too much before you train, even if all you're going to be doing is resistance training or strength training, you want to make sure that you're not having too much bulky food in your belly. That blood flow is going to be redirected to your stomach, that could be going to your muscles, right? So we want to keep it light. So I say between 10 and 25 grams of some sort of lean protein is good. This does a couple of things. One, protein is a source of energy for your muscles while you're training. Although carbohydrates does make up the majority of the energy that your body burns for your workouts, but the protein is also a piece of that.
(05:13)
Eating enough protein before your workout will also give your body enough of a jumpstart on muscle protein synthesis, which is the process by which your body builds muscle while you're training. Your body is going to be breaking some muscle down, especially if you're doing resistance training for muscle building and accumulating micro tears in the muscles. That is part of the process of how we get strong. That's how we need to train. But giving your body the protein that it needs can give it a little bit of a boost so that you keep that energy up and your body can go ahead and start making repairs on those micro tears and start getting you stronger faster. So good examples of 10 to 25 grams of lean protein snacks that you could have before your workout in that two hour to 30 minute window. Our Greek yogurt, Greek yogurt is a fantastic source of protein.
(06:01)
You could also do hard-boiled egg. Just make sure that you're being careful about your calories because egg yolk itself has a lot of fat and that therefore has a lot of calories. You could do also a protein shake or a protein bar and cottage cheese is another really good source. I know a lot of bodybuilders also like to have a little can of tuna before they train. Again, make sure that you're not going for something that is too high a source of saturated fat, a lot of protein that comes from animals. If there's fat with that like cream or actual animal fat with it, that is going to be hard for your body to break down and digest and it's going to make you feel really heavy. So you want to be careful about how much fat you're consuming and if you are consuming a type of dietary fat before you're training, really try to aim for unsaturated fats rather than saturated fats.
(06:49)
The saturated fats are the ones that come from animal products mainly that are solid at room temperature. So again, if you're doing the egg yolks, you want to be careful about how many of those egg yolks you're having. You could do boiled egg whites with a mixture of one or two egg yolks if you really need a lot of protein. That's what I typically recommend for people who are eating eggs, just so that you don't need to eat the yolk of every egg that you eat, if that makes sense. Now, if it is within that two hour window even, I mean I even push it out further that if you're eating one to two hours before you're going to work out, then you should also maybe shoot for a small source of healthy fats for sustained energy, especially if you're going to be doing a really long workout.
(07:32)
The longer that you train, the longer that you work out, your body is probably going to burn through a lot of the carbohydrates that you give it during this window. If you are working out for more than an hour, a lot of those sugars are probably going to get burned. But having a source of healthy fats is a much harder to digest source of energy for your body, but your body will tap into that energy source towards the end of your workout so that you don't have so much of a dip in energy. Maybe you've noticed when you work out sometimes that you're really energized at the beginning and then you hit a halfway point where you're just like, oh crap, I don't have any energy anymore. It's likely at that point that your body has burned through a lot of the sugars or the carbohydrates that you ate before the workout and then your body has to switch gears and start looking for energy elsewhere.
(08:18)
If you want to avoid having such a huge dip, you can have a good source of healthy fats in that one to two hour window before you train. Good source of that would be like peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, something like that. You can also do a trail mix that has a mixture of nuts and seeds and fruit, so you get some carbohydrates in there as well. Avocado is a really good source of healthy fats as well. If you want to do avocado on some whole grain toast, that is a really good pre-workout snack that will give you sustained energy as well as some carbohydrates, easy to digest carbohydrates and whole grain as well. Anything is going to have a little bit of protein in it as well. So pro tips, that's what you want to shoot for. Also, don't forget that it's not just about the food that you take in before you would train, right?
(09:08)
It's also important that you're drinking enough water. Hydration is so important for just keeping your body healthy, but especially keeping your body feeling good and performing well during your workouts. Drinking enough water is going to give your muscles the hydration that they need to function best. It's also going to help you with temperature regulation, which is going to be really important, especially if you're going to be doing anything cardio wise where your core temperature is likely to go up, your body is going to need that ability to regulate its temperature. So drinking plenty of water in that case is especially important, especially if you're going to be sweating too. If you are going to be doing a particularly long workout more than an hour, or if it's going to be really intense, I would recommend drinking some kind of a sports drink. Or you could also opt for coconut water, something that's going to have some electrolytes in it to help your body to retain water and stay hydrated through the course of that workout.
(10:01)
Now, if you are eating within that 30 minute window right before you're going to train, which to be honest, that's a lot of times when I have to have my pre-workout snack because I'm busy and sometimes I forget to eat throughout the day thanks to a DHD. So I know that going into a workout if I don't have any fuel in me, or if it's been a long time since I last ate, I'm going to need something to help me power through. So when it's between 30 and 60 minutes before a workout, especially in that 30 minute window, it's really important to focus on easy to digest sugars for your body. So generally speaking, you want to do something that's a piece of fruit, but some people will actually just go ahead and have candy, which is not ideal. Of course. We don't really like refined sugars.
(10:48)
We want to reduce our intake of refined sugars, but in a pinch, if you have not had anything to eat all day, then having a little piece of candy right before your workout can give you just a little bit of an energy boost to get you going, but you don't really want to depend on this as something that you do normally. Ideally, make sure that you're eating plenty of time before your workout, and if you're going to have something that has easy to digest sugars, opt for a piece of fruit instead, or a piece of bread, something that has more easy to digest carbohydrates. You also don't really want to eat something that has a ton of protein and fat in it, even if it's healthy fat because it takes our body a lot longer to digest protein and fat than it does carbohydrates. And as a result, if you are doing, especially if you're doing cardio or something that has you moving a lot or getting your heart rate up, if you have food in your stomach that is harder to digest, you're going to feel really, really heavy.
(11:51)
You're also more likely to experience abdominal cramps while you're training if you have fat or protein in your belly and you've just eaten that right before you train. So if it is right before your workout, I really would focus on something that's a good source of carbohydrates and a very, very, if you're going to have any kind of protein or fat, I would make it a very small amount. Don't overdo it because you'll be feeling really heavy at the least. And the worst case scenario is that it will make you feel nauseous and make you feel sick, which I've done this from time to time. It's not a fun time, okay? Don't make your workout harder than it needs to be, but the further out away from your workout, one to two hours you get, and then more than that, then you can actually handle eating more, right?
(12:36)
So just think as you get closer to your workout, you want to make things as simple as possible. You want simple, simple energy the closer that it gets to your workout, but as it gets further out one to two hours, then you can have a little bit more complexity. If it's more than two hours, just go ahead and eat a meal following the healthy plate model. Now, when you are thinking about what you're going to eat before you train, make sure to avoid these errors. One, you don't want to eat too much fiber or too much fat as we talked about before, having too much fat will make it harder for your body to digest. You'll feel really heavy. Same thing goes with too much fiber. So something that's really concentrated fiber, especially if you don't normally eat a lot of fiber, be careful about that because that can cause some digestive discomfort, which can make you feel sick and even nauseous.
(13:25)
So you want to be very careful about how much fiber you're eating before you train. Also, avoid the mistake of just skipping the snack entirely. Honestly, I would rather my clients come to the workout even 15 minutes late with some fuel in their system versus starting the workout on an empty stomach because if they start the workout on an empty stomach, they're likely not to have the energy to actually complete their workout, and they're probably going to be feeling really sick by the end of it. So it is good to just get something in, even if it's like I said, just like a piece of candy, just to give your system a little quick boost of sugar. Again, you don't want that to be a normal thing that you do, so preferably like a piece of fruit or a piece of bread or something. If you're running late, you've got to get to your workout, but you need to put something on your stomach.
(14:12)
Keep it simple and follow those recommendations. Just don't do too much protein or fat. And then of course, this goes without saying, try to avoid overeating before you work out. If you eat too much food before you train, you are going to have a bad time. And I think we all probably know somebody who has a story about getting sick at the end of their workout or in the middle of their workout. So that's no fun. And we want the gym to be a fun place. So don't give yourself that drama. As a reminder, it's all about balance and timing here and just being really conscious about what your body is going to get from the food that you give it. Remember, carbohydrates are your body's preferred source of fuel. So that's usually what we're going to be prioritizing in a pre-workout snack or a pre-workout meal.
(14:59)
Protein as well is important to have in your system either before you train or after you train. That way your body gets a jumpstart on muscle protein synthesis, repairing those muscle tears that happen as a normal course of working out. And then if you're going to be doing something super, super long, getting a good source of healthy fats can help you to sustain energy. As long as you are eating it far enough out from the beginning of your workout, you should be fine. Now, keep in mind that this podcast does have a post associated with it in the Gaines Club membership on my website. So go to Jaydigains.com, J-A-Y-D-I-G-A-N s.com, and you can join the membership and get access to the recipe collections that I post every single week. This recipe collection is called What to Eat Before You Work Out. It has example recipes, a downloadable PDF that you can print off and keep in your kitchen, as well as a little bit more detail about the things that we're talking about in this podcast episode.
(16:00)
So make sure to check out my website, sign up for the Gaines Club, and you get access to this and so much more content that I post every single week. So that is the episode for today. I hope that you found it helpful. I would love to hear what questions you have in response to this podcast episode. If you're watching this on YouTube, leave those questions and comments in the comments below this video. Also, make sure to like and subscribe to my channel so that you get notified every single time that I post a video throughout the week. If you're listening on your podcast app, make sure to subscribe to this channel so that the new episodes get delivered right to your device. And if you would like to hang out with me when I'm live throughout the week on my Twitch channel, go to Twitch tv slash jd games.
(16:43)
I go live on Tuesdays and then a couple other times throughout the week. As I have time, you can come hang out, ask your fitness questions while I train or hang out with me while I play video games. Now, I hope that you have a good rest of your day. Wherever you are, make sure to take care of yourself and prioritize yourself, care whether that is going to the gym, drinking water, eating good food, or just letting yourself rest when your body needs to rest. You are important. You matter what you feel and what you need matters. So make sure that you prioritize that. I will see you in the next episode. Take care.