“Don’t lift empty because you won’t go very far”
Skipping breakfast is a common practice among people who exercise early in the morning. Researches has shown that to ensure adequate workout intensity, it is optimal to eat a balance diet containing not only protein but a meal that contain all vital nutrients in correct ratio and proportion 45 minute before a workout in a predigested form.
There is a well known saying that “don’t lift empty’. If you roll out of bed and eat nothing before you go for a run, you may be running on fumes. You will probably perform better if you eat something before you exercise. During the night, you can deplete your liver glycogen, the source of carbohydrate that maintains normal blood sugar levels. When you start a workout with low blood sugar, you fatigue earlier than you would have if you had eaten something.
How much you should eat varies from person to person, ranging from a few crackers to a slice of bread, a glass of juice, a bowl of cereal, or a whole breakfast.
Most people get good results from 0.5 gram of carbohydrate (2 calories) per kg of body weight one hour before moderately hard exercise. For a 68kg person, this is 34 (200 calories)of carbohydrate –the equivalent of a small bowl of cereal or a banana. Defining the best amount of pre-exercise food is difficult because tolerances vary greatly from person to person.
Some athletes get up two hours early just to eat and then go back to bed and allow time for the food settle. Others have a few bites of a biscuits, a banana, or some other easy to digest food as they dash out the door Then there are those who habitually run on empty. If that’s you, an abstainer, here is a noteworthy study that might convince you to experiment with eating at least 100 calories of a morning snack before you work out.
Researchers asked a group of athletes to bike moderately hard for as long as they could. When they ate breakfast (400 calories of carbohydrate), they biked for 136 minutes, as compared with 109 minutes after only drinking water (Schubert et al. 1999). Clearly, these athletes and other sports players were able to train better with some fuel in them.
