Wednesday, November 7, 2012

What should I eat if I workout early in the morning?


"What should I eat if I work out first thing in the morning? I eat several small meals throughout the day, but when I work out first thing in the AM, it has been hours since my last meal." 
 Morning eating is tricky because your body can store glycogen overnight so you may not need to eat anything at all—just drink water. However, when your diet is lean and you're training hard (a very common scenario for Beachbody-ers) you can use up all of your glycogen for the previous day's recovery, leaving your tank empty when you wake up. Keepin mind that you don't want to workout on a full stomach so keep your pre-workout meal small and light. You don't want to get nauseous in the middle of your sweat session.  Here is our standard recommendation for this situation. 
Woman drinking shake
Try eating a banana (or half, depending on your size) or a half serving of Results and Recovery Formula® in the morning just before your workout. If you feel better during your workout, especially near the end, you've figured out that you're running out of glycogen. If this is the case you can do one of two things: keep eating the banana or something similar (about 100 calories of mostly carbs) or add a serving of carbohydrates (rice, sweet potato, etc.) to your evening meal. Both should accomplish the same thing.

When your workout is over, you've burned through your glycogen and want to replenish it, which means either Results and Recovery Formula for breakfast or a meal that's mainly carbs with a little protein, like fruit with yogurt, cereal with milk or, my favorite, oats w/ a scoop of protein powder and fruit, or even Shakeology.

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