HERE'S a scenario for you.
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You’ve booked yourself in for a personal training session at 6am.
The alarm chimes in your ear at 5.30am.
You open one eye and scan the glowing numbers in disbelief as it feels like you’ve only just gone to sleep.
Surely it’s not 5.30 already! Yep, it’s time.
Rolling out of bed, you fumble your way into exercise gear and grab a bottle of water.
The fruit bowl catches your eye. To eat, or not to eat – that is the question.
Unsure, you grab a banana, thinking that at least it’ll be something in your stomach to get you through.
Not more than two minutes into the session, and you feel the banana – which should be heading south via the digestive tract – rising up in your throat.
Oh no, it feels as if it’s going to come back up!
Filled with regret, you soldier on and get through your session with some well-timed deep breaths (because if there’s air going in surely the banana can’t come out)!
I’ve used this example because I think I’ve seen this at least 1000 times over the past seven years of working as a trainer.
When to eat either side of a training session causes a lot of confusion.
And I can understand why.It’s complex and there’s no simple answer. There are a lot of variables that come into play.
Firstly, food consumed before exercise is only useful once it is digested and converted into energy for your body to utilise.
And the time required for digestion depends on the type of food eaten.
As a blanket approach, you can have a snack/light meal one to two hours before exercise or a main meal around three to four hours before.
However (and here come the variables), carbohydrates generally digest faster than fats, proteins and high-fibre foods. So it really depends on your choice of food to correctly match the time frame.
Ideally, you want to eat at least an hour before exercise.
However, if this isn’t feasible (as with the above example), then it’s best to just drink some water, or for some people a sports drink (try to source one that isn’t loaded with sugar) or have something really light, like a handful of berries.
If you can get something in one to two hours before, I’d recommend choosing things like a muesli bar, a piece of fruit (bananas will serve you well, given time to digest), cereal or a smoothie.
If you have more than three hours of digestion time you can choose almost anything you like, as your body will have time to absorb the food and convert it into energy.
And once you’ve sweated it out in your session of choice, be sure to hydrate well and refuel your body with a well-balanced meal, including a good source of protein.
Amy Holmes is the owner of Shape Health and Fitness. You can follow her blog at www.shapehealthandfitness. com.au, on Facebook at Shape Health and Fitness or on instagram @amy_shapehealthandfitness