Should you eat before or after the gym?

Should eat before or after gym is a concern of many people. Eating or not eating before and after the gym will have a direct impact on your body and training results. Therefore, to ensure effective training, you cannot ignore the useful information below.

Nutrition and exercise are two factors that are extremely important to an individual’s overall health. Moreover, nutrition and exercise also have a direct influence on each other, creating different effects for each practitioner.

Whether to eat during exercise and whether to eat before or after exercise are always common problems that beginners often encounter. Let’s follow the following content to know if you should eat when you go to the gym!

Should you eat before the gym?

Eating and not eating before the gym will produce different reactions

Fasting during exercise helps spur the body to use fat for energy. In it, the fats are stored as triglycerides in adipose tissue and carbs are stored in the muscles and liver as well as a form of sugar in the blood.

However, fasting when exercising, you will lose fat more effectively. Meanwhile, supplementing with food before exercising helps to provide energy and support better muscle mass gain, while adding the necessary nutrients to maintain muscle health.?

Is it possible not to eat before training when only doing short exercises?

Eating before exercise will have an impact on training performance. However, for short, light workouts of about 30 minutes, whether or not you eat first won’t change the results too much.

In fact, this result may depend more or less on your previous nutrition. Our body stores 2000 calories per day. So even if you don’t eat before training, you still have enough energy to meet that training session.

Gentle exercise in a short time can use the stored energy available in the body

Eating before an intense workout can improve performance

The benefit of eating before a workout is that it provides carbs for the body. Adding slow-burning carbs or eating many hours before exercise helps the body store enough metabolic energy to function at its best during exercise. Therefore, eating before the gym has a more pronounced effect for those who exercise for more than an hour.

>>> See more: Does fasting before the gym affect health?

Should you eat after the gym?

If you don’t eat before, eat after the gym

Certain nutrients, especially protein and carbs, and essential vitamins and minerals, have the potential to help your body recover and adapt from exercise more quickly.

If you’re fasting before a workout, it’s extremely important to eat after a workout. The body has to expend a lot of energy to meet the needs of exercise, but it does not have enough nutrients to relax and restore muscles.

This can make you more prone to pain and fatigue, and even adversely affect muscle mass in the long run. Eating after exercise will help the body quickly replenish the necessary nutrients.

Eating after exercise helps the body recover and replenish energy faster

How long should I eat after exercising?

You already know that eating after the gym is very important. The timing of the meal won’t make too much of a difference, though. Eating right after exercise or relaxing for a few hours before eating has the effect of restoring muscles and providing nutrients to the body.

Although there is no fixed time for eating after exercise, you should eat as soon as possible, especially on the days you fast before starting the gym.

>>> See more: Check out 5 foods that should not be eaten after a gym session

Personal preference is the most important factor

Depending on your personal preferences and schedule, you can choose to eat or not to eat before exercise. Eating before exercise is especially important for people who exercise a lot and often. In contrast, people who only exercise for a short time often have a good training effect if they fast before exercising.

For some people, eating early before exercising can make them feel sluggish or nauseous. Meanwhile, others feel weak and tired if they don’t eat anything before hitting the gym.

If you exercise early in the morning, choose a small portion or maybe not eat so as not to affect digestion

Usually, eating 1 to 3 hours before exercise is the best, so that the body has enough time to digest and absorb nutrients. Therefore, if you do not have much time to eat before training, especially the shorter the time, the portion size should be as small as possible to ensure that the body is not full, stomach upset or uncomfortable during exercise.

If you work out in the morning, go for a run or go to the gym right after waking up, eating before exercise needs to be more mindful. The less time you have between eating and exercising, the smaller your pre-exercise meal. This can help prevent feelings of fullness and discomfort during exercise.

Since all meals provide the nutrients you need, you have the freedom to choose whether to eat them before exercise, after exercise, or both for an effective workout.

>>> See more: Lack of nutrients due to sweating: what supplements do gym goers need?

Exercising properly and in accordance with the body’s ability will help you stay healthy, achieve good results without harming the body. The trainers on increaseheightblog.com can help you design the best workout program so you can work out safely and effectively more quickly.

Reference source

Should You Eat Before or After Working Out?. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/eating-before-or-after-workout#fasted-vs-fed-exercise. Access date: May 14, 2020

Is It Better to Eat Before or After a Workout? https://greatist.com/fitness/is-it-better-to-eat-before-or-after-a-workout. Access date: May 14, 2020