Nutrition

What is the best morning workout nutrition?

Should I eat before an early morning workout? Will I have enough energy to train hard if I don’t eat? How long should I Ieave it before exercising? Do I need to eat post-workout if I’ve already eaten before? What if I workout really early in the morning and don’t want to get up EVEN earlier to eat beforehand?

Some of us wake up in the morning starving for breakfast whereas others find it a struggle to eat until later. Some of us perform better when we workout early in the morning, others need longer to wake up so prefer to train later in the day.

Ultimately everyone is different so the key here is preference. I’ll try my best to show you how to work around this to optimise your morning training sessions and post-workout nutrition.

Preference

It’s totally your preference, therefore the strategy you adopt should suit your schedule, opposed to drastically changing your schedule.

If you prefer to workout early in the morning, for example 5am, firstly massive well done on getting up and getting it done, it can be a great way to start your day before the rest of the world is awake. Secondly, remember that waking up hungry is okay, and feeling hungry for a little while during your workout is okay unless it negatively impacts your ability to exercise. Similarly, working out after eating is absolutely fine if you’re comfortable doing that and it doesn't make your stomach feel unsettled whilst you move around.

Nausea

Eating a large volume of food immediately before a workout may make some people feel a little nauseous with food sitting higher up their digestive tract, especially if your workout is one that elevates your heart rate/breathing and you’re jumping around all over the place. This feeling of nausea is caused by blood being redistributed (shunted) away from the digestive system to where it’s needed more in the working muscles, to provide them with the oxygen they need for exercise.

This feeling of nausea could feel more intense when you’ve eaten a meal containing proteins, fats and slower digesting carbohydrates opposed to faster digesting carbohydrates.

Eaten the night before?

If you have eaten a meal the evening before that contains a reasonable portion of carbohydrates you’ll likely have sufficient glycogen stores in your muscles to fuel your workout the next morning. Therefore you don't necessarily need to eat anything pre-workout, especially if your workout isn’t endurance based (so not a half marathon) and is of a duration of 60 minutes or less.

Not eaten the night before?

If you haven’t eaten dinner the evening before, you might want to have a carbohydrate-based snack or light breakfast before you workout, in order to increase your blood glucose levels, ready for the working muscles. 

Preferably the carbohydrates you consume would be of a high glycemic index (GI) - these are fast absorbing and cause blood glucose to increase quickly… excellent for providing your body with a quick source of energy.

Take for example, half a slice of white toast with jam. However, there isn’t robust evidence to suggest this would increase your performance in none-endurance exercise and is maybe only of benefit if you hadn’t eaten for 24 hours beforehand.

Perceived energy

It’s possible you MIGHT feel a lower perceived energy, regardless of a meal the evening before, in which case you could have coffee as a pre-workout, to feel a buzz and potentially get you working at a higher perceived effort.

Not everyone will feel a lower perceived energy and these feelings will also depend on the length and quality of your sleep. I’d encourage you to experiment and see what works best for you. Here are a couple of examples:

• Have a decent meal the evening before, one that includes a carbohydrate source. Do your early workout then eat your protein rich breakfast within 1-2 hours of finishing your workout.

• Have a morning carbohydrate snack with a high glycemic index. If you’re comfortable doing so, you should be able to workout immediately after having this because blood glucose levels will elevate quite soon after. Eat your protein rich breakfast (including carbohydrates) within 1-2 hours of finishing your workout.

• Eat your full breakfast earlier, wait 60-75mins until you feel comfortable to workout. You’ll still have consumed a portion of protein around your workout and the next portion of protein will likely not be far behind (i.e. lunch).

Check out the super-handy flow diagram I made for you to help you make a decision (image below).

Note that for shorter duration exercise, performance is not improved following carbohydrate ingestion. Really, no matter which option you choose you won’t notice any difference when it comes to meeting fat loss goals but one option might be more comfortable/convenient than the other.

‘The post-exercise protein window!’

You may have heard people talking about a protein window, and saying you should have your protein immediately after a workout otherwise you’ll lose all your gains.

Rates of muscle protein synthesis (the process by which muscle fibres repair themselves) are elevated for up to 48 hours after resistance training, so you’ve plenty of opportunity to get in several servings of protein within that 48 hour window, by which time you’ll most likely have done another workout anyway. Even though it isn’t absolutely imperative to consume protein directly after a workout, it’s preferable and conducive to muscle building goals to consume a protein source within 1-2 hours of finishing resistance training. I will most definitely go into this in more detail in a subsequent blog post!

Conclusion

• The best morning workout nutrition is the one that works for you. 

• Working out in the morning doesn’t suit everyone.

• Pre-workout carbohydrate intake may improve performance if you’re training for endurance but won’t have a noticeable effect on short duration exercise under 60 minutes in length. 

• It doesn’t matter too much if your goal is weight loss, so do what works for you. 

• If you’re short on time in the morning utilise your evening meals to help fuel yourself for morning workouts.

• Don’t forget about sleep and caffeine as tools for improving your perceived energy in the morning.

• Experiment with different approaches and aim for a routine.

Thanks for reading and you can listen to me chatting about this topic in my podcast episode number 6 - Morning workout nutrition. 

- Catherine

References:

Foster-Powell et al., 2002 - International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values. Jeukendrup & Killer, 2010 - The myths surrounding pre-exercise carbohydrate feeding. Chad et al., 2017 - International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrient timing. Rothschild et al., 2020 - What should I eat before exercise? Pre-exercise nutrition and the response to endurance exercise: current prospective and future directions.