Do you need to eat breakfast before an early workout?

December 9, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

So, you may have heard it’s good to gas up on a well balanced breakfast before your morning workout.

(An *appropriate* amount of time before, that is…So you aren’t rockin’ this face midway through.)

But, like, what if you have a 5 A.M. Crossfit class?

That doesn’t apply to you – does it?

I know… that’s so early – when you got to bed at midnight anyway. There’s no way that rule still applies, right? Unfortunately, yes. Because reality doesn’t hit pause or offer easy breaks just ’cause we “deserve” it. Reality doesn’t care that you needed time to unwind and didn’t climb into bed until after ten (when you’d originally planned to power down). What reality does do, however, is come crashing down on you hard tomorrow morning – when you wake up, rolling into your early o’ clock class, yawning, with zero food fuel in your tank with which to perform all those burpees, upside down pushups, and backward-up-the-wall crabwalking (or whatever it is that Crossfitters do). As you might be able to tell, Crossfitter I am not. However, as a student of Muay Thai, I can absolutely attest to this. After starting martial arts a year or so ago, I noticed Jekyll and Hyde sides to my training persona. Days I head to class with an empty belly, I end up full-body flaccid halfway through class. I run outta energy. My limbs turn to linguine. I’m tapped. Definitely ineffective for punching or kicking. (But very much a win for my sparring partner when my exhausted extremities fail to block their blows.) Contrarily, days I roll in – post digesting veggie, tofu sushi rolls or some other grand macro-balanced meal – I feel like Nintendo-Mario, high on that crack-like level-up flower drug he loves.

(Feast mode leads to beast mode.)

And, the science tends to corroborate this, too.

Aside from the fact that it sends your metabolism going full blast, eating also imparts more energy during your actual sweat sesh. And that’s important because it means that – since you’re putting forth more effort – you’re burning more calories from working harder. Contrarily, not gassing up the gastric tank prior to perspiration time, turns you into a ravenous beast once class is done. The result? You eating more calories than you normally would before or after your workout.

Now, you might be thinking, “But I read that fasting before my first workout’s good for weight loss.”

Yep. I read that, too. But this is two-fold wrong. The first reason why? Well, when you run hungry (or bike, or swim), you’re ripping through your muscle reserves – breaking ’em down. That’s bad because muscle’s your fat fighting factory. You want that there. Secondly, this study’s bunk because the subjects were eating a high fat diet. One that comprised more calories than they should’ve been eating. And that – bad eating habits – is the first thing to be altered. (Remember: you can’t out-train a bad diet.) So, yeah, if you’re eating too much (and too much fat), then you might lose some weight fasting before your workout. However, you’ll probably gain it back double fast. Also: you’ll lose far more by having that high fiber, carb, and protein filled breakfast an hour and a half before that class that’s about to batter your body into shape. (And you’ll thank me when you don’t cancel out your workout after with a post gym binge.)

So, in sum, no you don’t have to wake up at sunrise to dine before a five-something A.M. workout.

But you need to… if wanna optimize your weight loss and avoid weight gain.