If you like to do sports late in the afternoon, it is important to prepare an appropriate dinner to replenish strength and nutrients. But if you are one of those early risers who take advantage of the first hour of the morning to exercise, then the usual question is what for breakfast?

The truth is that, when choosing what to have for breakfast if you do sports in the morning, there are several options, without one being more correct than another, depending on our preferences and what feels best to us. Taking into account that We refer at all times to amateur trainingby going to the gym 3-4 times a week or similar.

If you are an elite athlete, you do training sessions lasting more than an hour, you prepare for a test or you compete, it is appropriate that you seek personalized advice and adapted to your type of training and intensity in a dietitian-nutritionist specialized in sports nutrition. It will help you both with intake and with adequate hydration and replenishment before, during and after sports.

What to eat for breakfast (or not) before a workout

We are going to see different common situations among those who start the day with physical activity.

Training on an empty stomach, do we burn more fat?

Go to the gym without having eaten anything It is a growing trend, for two reasons: thinking that more fat will be “burned” or that the training will be more effective, or because they are people who go very early and do not have time to have breakfast, or if they do, they feel heavy and uncomfortable during the exercise.

In this sense, speaking of a non-professional exercise routine and simply for health reasons, the truth is that it is not a very important point and the advice would be “do it as it suits you best.” In general, It’s okay to go without breakfastif we are well.

It is enough that let’s reinforce the intake aftermaking a good breakfast or a good mid-morning depending on the time. The examples of breakfasts included can serve perfectly as post-workout meals.

Regarding training on an empty stomach to improve fat metabolism or body composition, Bárbara Sánchez, sports dietitian-nutritionist, tells us that this is a useful strategy for professionals. It is common for them to do a glycogen-depleted cardio workout once a week (with empty carbohydrate stores) to optimize fat metabolism, so that the number of mitochondria increases and they become more efficient in competition, when they «run out of fuel.»

This has been brought to the “general public” by mistranslating it as “fasting cardio to burn fat” but it is not that simple, we should know that by doing it from time to time no more fat will be burnedand the important thing if you want to improve body composition is to take care of your caloric intake throughout the day.

Furthermore, when we talk about “fasted training,” adds Barbara, it is a poor translation from English: It doesn’t necessarily mean not eating anything.but since training the previous day we have omitted carbohydrates.

In this way we do training in glycogen depleted conditions (with empty carbohydrate stores) and we force our body to use fat to function.

But if we do not have breakfast and the night before we have had a dinner rich in carbohydrates, the next morning, in that supposed training on an empty stomach, in reality the muscle glycogen is intact and is of no use.

When eating too much breakfast makes you feel bad

In those cases it is best to take something light, easy to digest and with little fiber before, and take something stronger for after training.

For example, have only an infusion or coffee for breakfast, or unsweetened soy yogurt, or even a smoothie (this would be a good time to drink fiber-free juices). And at the end we eat a hummus or peanut butter sandwich, or a handful of nuts with a banana, or a bowl of oatmeal porridge with seeds.

6 breakfasts for early-rising athletes

If you are one of those who get up to have a good breakfast before grabbing your gym bag, we suggest some healthy options. The fact that shortly after you are going to start sweating, It’s no excuse to have an unhealthy breakfast. It doesn’t even make up for it. Cookies, pastries or sugary breakfast cereals are always out.

It is good that we include a small protein part such as soy drink or yogurt, tofu, hummus, nuts, hemp seeds or even protein powder. If we don’t do it at breakfast, let’s include it in the mid-morning snack.

• Classic: coffee with a vegetable drink, whole wheat toast with tomato and oil and slices of smoked tofu.
• Fashion: chia pudding made with soy drink, with red fruit and nut topping. Green tea.
• Sweet: oatmeal porridge with cocoa, dates and almonds. A tablespoon of hemp seeds.
• To go: banana smoothie with vegetable drink, a spoonful of peanut butter and a scoop of protein powder (soy or pea).
• From instagramer: fruit and vegetable smoothie, toast with avocado and brewer’s yeast. A handful of cashews.
• Fast: soy yogurt without added sugar with nuts, raisins and cinnamon. A fruit for the road.