What Should You Eat Before and After Exercise?

I get asked this question quite a lot. The answer isn’t a simple or straightforward one, because you have to balance you overall goals (in most cases with my clients this is burning calories and weight loss), with fuelling your body in such a way as to optimise your energy and therefore performance during your workout. So what should you eat before and after exercise?

When Should You Eat?

Let’s cover this point first. You don’t want to eat too close to your workout. We have all been in this position when the food hasn’t digested properly and you start feeling sick. You want to give yourself 2 hours after a proper meal before you exercise. Of course you could have a snack such as a banana or apple just before you train if you haven’t eaten for longer than that or if you are exercising first thing in the morning.

FYI – Don’t fall into the trap that exercising on an empty stomach first thing in the morning somehow burns more fat. It’s like trying to start your car without any fuel in it – it just won’t work. Your body is the same, it needs fuel to exercise properly. So have something before you train.

And after your workout, the sooner you eat the better. The body is craving to be refuelled and start its replenish and repair process, so it will use the calories you put in it to do this. I.E. They won’t be stored as fat. However that is not a green light to just eat anything after your finish exercising…

What Should You Eat Before Exercise?

This is where it gets a little complicated. If you were an athlete purely looking at it from an optimal performance perspective, I would say healthy carbs, such as oats, grains, pulses, beans, even potatoes and pasta. The carbs are what will give you the most energy to train.

But if you goal is weight loss you obviously need to amend this slightly. If you load up on carbs too much it is not going to help your weight loss efforts. Before you exercise if definitely the right time to eat your carbs, but I would suggest still balancing them out with protein.

For example, porridge for breakfast if you are training mid-morning. Or have a portion of sweet potato or cous cous or another natural, slow release carb for lunch if you are exercising later in the day.
If you are exercising before a meal time, e.g. 12pm or 6pm I would suggest a snack such as fruit before you exercise to give you an energy boost.

You want to stay away from foods high in fat before you exercise. Even healthy fats such as nuts and oily fish. The reason being, fat takes longer to digest, so you are more likely to feel full/sick even if you don’t exercise for a couple of hours.

What Should You Eat After Exercise?

Protein. After training you want to feed your body protein which will allow your muscles to recover and repair quicker. You don’t need any carbs at this point (again unless you are an athlete) as you have done your workout and don’t have to fuel your body anymore. So a meal high in lean protein such as chicken or fish, and veg/salad is the way to go post exercise.

Of course this all depends slightly when you exercise. Obviously if you are exercising mid-morning or mid-afternoon you will not want a full meal post workout. So in this case a high protein snack such as homemade hummus or cottage cheese would work.

Conclusion – What Should You Eat Before and After Exercise?

In a nutshell, healthy carbs before, lean protein after. Nasty, processed sugar should be nowhere….

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