Best Food Before Exercise
June 8th, 2007The best food before exercise is ideally something that will give you some form of sustained energy. There are a number of high quality complex carbohydrates that I would consider the best food before exercise but it really depends on when you eat them. Complex carbohydrates are without question the best food before exercise but differing forms of complex carbohydrates take different times to assimilate into your system and allow your body to use them for energy.
One of the best foods before exercise that is available all over the globe is rice. Although brown rice takes a little longer to digest than white rice and will give you a slightly longer period of sustained energy than white rice, I personally don’t really like brown rice so I use white rice as a sustained form of energy before I workout by eating it at least 2 hours before I exercise. In Asia where I currently live rice is about the most common food available on any street corner and offers a great slow burning energy throughout the long hot days here.
In the Western world a lot of pasta is consumed, although I wouldn’t say it was the best food before exercise, it still is quite adequate at giving the body a lengthy supply of sustained energy after consuming it. It’s best to eat pasta at least a few hours before exercise to give it time to absorb into your body and be ready to be used as exercise fuel.
In terms of the best foods to eat before exercise I would have to say that potatoes and bread will give you a faster and ready to use form of energy that is metabolized by the body much faster than rice or pasta so for this reason both bread and potatoes could be a candidate for the best food before exercise. Although bread and potatoes might be the best food before exercise they are certainly not the best food to eat if you don’t plan to exercise. These two foods will turn to fat if the energy from them is not used almost as fast as you would get fat from eating spoonfuls of sugar so be careful with eating too much bread or potatoes.
I like to exercise with weights in the morning so the best food before exercise for me is oatmeal. I eat a medium serving of oatmeal which I believe is the ideal breakfast as soon as I wake up and the energy from the oatmeal is ready to be burnt during my morning gym workout a couple of hours after I eat breakfast. The added benefit of eating oatmeal everyday, especially in the morning, is it offers a great source of fiber and keeps the body regular.
Eating foods like chocolate or sweets are not the ideal food before exercise as they only give your body an insulin spike from the sugar and a short sharp burst of energy and as fast as your energy level goes up it plummets just as quickly and you end up feeling more lethargic than before you ate the sweets. So stick to the complex carbohydrates I mentioned as the best food before exercise and you will feel stronger and energetic for longer periods while exercising.
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