What To Eat Before an Early a.m. Workout

What should you eat before an early morning workout? Moms are busy women. Our workouts have to be fast and efficient. We want and need to get the most bang for our buck and that’s why you must eat something before an early morning workout…no matter how early!

I’m not saying to eat a full meal. There’s a good chance you’ll feel sick doing that because blood flow going from the stomach will start going to the working muscles. I’m saying that you must eat something that will give you energy for the workout. Think about it. How hard can you really work on a fasting stomach? Not very. We’ve all done it at some point and if you remember (I know some people  only have to remember back a day or two!), your workout was probably exhausting; you couldn’t wait for it to be over; you couldn’t lift as much, run as fast, go as long and maybe you even got dizzy or lightheaded. 

The point is busy moms need their workouts to be quick and efficient and that means you must work hard to get the “afterburn” where your body is revved up for up to 36 hours after the workout. You just can’t work that hard on an empty stomach, so do yourself a favor and eat something small before your early morning workout. You can have a larger post-workout meal (make sure the post workout meal has protein and carbs for optimal recovery). 

Some examples for a light snack before an early morning workout are:

• 1/2 of a meal replacement shake
• baked sweet potato and hard boiled egg
• melon with a few slices of lean turkey
• banana with almond butter

Have foods that are  easy to digest, stick with fruits that have higher glycemic loads and try different foods and see what works best for you. Just eat something!