What breakfast if I do sports in the morning?

In last week’s article we talked about suitable dinners for those who play sports in the late afternoon. In today’s we thought about the early risers, those who take advantage of the first thing in the morning To do exercise. So the usual question is what breakfast?

The truth is that 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 an amateur trainingby going to the gym 3-4 times a week or similar.

If you are an elite athlete, you train for more than an hour, prepare for a test or 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 (or not) for breakfast before training

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

Training fasting, do we burn more fat?

Go to the gym without eating anything It is a growing trend, for two reasons: to think 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 eat breakfast, or if they do, they feel heavy and uncomfortable during 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 suits you best”. In general, nothing happens to go without breakfastif we are well.

It’s enough that Let’s reinforce the intake after, making a good breakfast or a good mid-morning depending on the time. The examples of breakfasts that are included can perfectly serve as post-workout intakes.

Regarding fasted training to improve fat metabolism or body composition, Bárbara Sánchez, an expert sports dietitian-nutritionist, tells us that this is a useful strategy for professionals. It is usual that once a week they do cardio training in glycogen depletion (with empty carbohydrate stores) to optimize fat metabolism, so that the number of mitochondria increases and they are more efficient in competition. when they “run out of fuel”.

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

Also, when we talk about “fasting training”, Barbara adds, it is a bad translation from English: does not necessarily imply not eating anythingbut since training the day before we have omitted carbohydrates.

In this way we do training under glycogen depletion conditions (with empty carbohydrate stores) and we force our body to pull 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 case I train fasting, in reality the muscle glycogen is intact and is of no use.

When eating a lot of breakfast makes you feel bad

In such 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 a sugar-free soy yogurt, or even a smoothie (this would be a good time to drink fiber-free juices). And when we finish 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 risers

If you are one of those who get up to have a good breakfast before taking the gym bag, we suggest some healthy options. The one that shortly after you are going to start sweating, It is not an excuse to have an unhealthy breakfast. nor does it make up for it. Cookies, pastries or sugary breakfast cereals are always left out.

It’s okay to 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 vegetable drink, whole wheat toast with tomato and oil and slices of smoked tofu.Fashion: Chia pudding made with soy drink, with a topping of red fruits and nuts. Green Tea.Sweet: porridge with cocoa, dates and almonds. A tablespoon of hemp seeds.To go: Banana smoothie with vegetable drink, a tablespoon of peanut butter and a scoop of protein powder (soy or pea).By 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.