Should you eat before exercise?

            As a dietitian specializing in sports nutrition, I have advised people to eat before they workout more times than I can count. Whether to give you the energy to fuel ma hard workout, or to keep you from feeling tired or faint while at the gym, the idea of grabbing a small meal or snack before hitting the pavement, pool or treadmill has been standard nutrition practice for years.
           
              If it is better to work out on an empty stomach. The answer depends on how you approach the question. Take, for example, a 2010 study conducted by Belgian researchers, which examined the effect of fasted-versus-fed exercise on body weight and glucose tolerance blood sugar control in healthy young men.

             The carb-eating group and the fasting group both saw their capacity to train to exhaustion increase by an equal amount, about 15% from the beginning of the study to the end. But the carb group saw their Vo2max, a measure of their body's ability to use oxygen during activity, increase significantly over the six weeks, while the fasting and control groups saw no change. If you know exercising on an empty stomach leaves you feeling so lousy, then it's best to grab a bite before you train.

                 According to the performance, your training should't always be about weight loss and when it isn't, I want add additional carbohydrates to your mix. 20 to 25 grams of carbs in the form of coconut water or a sports drink in combination with the protein or amino acids mentioned above will give your blood sugar a slight bump so that there is ample fuel coursing through your bloodstream when you hit the track or gym.

              If your goal is to drop pounds, having a scoop of why protein or 10 grams of branched chain amino acids 20 to 30 minutes before you hit the gym can be all you need to power up your session. The amino acids in the protein or BCAAS will fuel your muscles and jumpstart muscle building while preventing excessive muscle breakdown. Their makeup allows you to readily access alternate fuel sources while training, like body fat, so you burn flab, not muscle. One area of workout nutrition that we have long underappreciated is the carryover effect. When you have your pre-workout drink, these nutrients carry over to well after your workout is over. For example, one research study found that having a whey protein drink before a workout resulted in blood amino acid levels being increased for up to 2 hours following the workout. Your pre-workout shake does double duty of both pre and post-training nutrition.