What to eat before a workout

What many people don’t know is that it’s not only important to make sure to maintain a healthy diet and exercise regularly. The things that are also very important in order to make these regimes truly effective include what kinds of food are consumed prior to exercising as well.

What kind of nutrients should be consumed before exercising?

The best kinds of nutrients to take in before an exercise are the kinds that are going to be spent during it. As everyone is probably familiar with, the nutrients that exercising helps burn are fats and carbohydrates. Therefore, the foods that should be consumed prior to exercising should be based on proteins and carbohydrates. Not to mention that these are the foods that contain the most energy reserves, so they will be able to provide one with sufficient strength and energy to go through with the established plan of exercise.

When and what to eat?

It’s desirable to avoid eating anything just before exercising in order to give the body some time to properly digest all the food that’s been consumed. A proper big meal should be eaten more than for hours before exercising, while one may grab a small snack a couple of hours before it. This way, all the food will definitely be properly digested and the body will be provided with more than sufficient energy as well.

As for what kind of food to eat specifically, there really is no strict rule, just as long as it’s high in its content of carbohydrates or protein. For example, the meal can include food like potatoes, rice, pasta, porridge, lean milk or tuna, combined with some cheese, crackers, or vegetables. After that, it’s good to take a piece of fruit for dessert.

The snack should be sweet and filled with carbohydrates, such as jam on toast, a piece of fruit cake, a couple of biscuits, fruit yogurt, some cereal in any form.

The importance of fluids before working out

Hydration is very important before working out. People who are going for a workout and are not hydrated enough could collapse during. The intake of fluids really has no limit in either the quantity or time when it’s consumed.

The best fluid to use for hydration is, of course, water, and what’s also good is to always have a bottle while working out just in case of feeling that something isn’t right. A way to know if and how dehydrated one is, one should pay attention to the color of their urine. The darker the color the bigger the level of dehydration.