For those of you who exercise in the morning I am curious if you eat before or after you exercise and why?
I am not a morning person but this summer it might just work to go walk/run (hope to get there anyway) right after waking up. BUT I don't like eating in the mornings and have to force myself to eat breakfast (and I always do!) but the idea of doing breakfast before exercise and shower and stuff just seems odd.
Just wondering if there is a good reason to? I know breakfast is good for the body so I started making myself eat, I supposed if eating before exercise is good for some reason I can again force myself..... any thoughts would be great. I don't exercise much so I am trying to build the habit and want to start it out right.
I have a protein fruit smoothie after I work out every morning. I tend to feel sick if I eat before a workout. When I used to run, I needed the energy though and would have something easy like a banana beforehand.
I do my workouts right after waking up in the morning and I don't eat anything before hand. I work out for about 40ish minutes, shower, do my hair/makeup and then eat breakfast last right before I leave. I don't think there is any set in stone rule that you need to eat before you work out.
I get up at 5:30 and leave for the gym as soon as I am dressed and contacts are in. I come home, shower, then eat breakfast. There is a theory that working out on an empty stomach helps burn more calories, but I don't know if that is true. I have read that if you exercise on a full stomach, blood that should be used for digestion is diverted to the muscles, and that that is not a good situation. Again, I don't know if that is proven fact or theory.
I never eat before I workout after the one fateful day I got sick on the treadmill. For me working out on a full stomach means that I wont make it through, I will get sick and I will feel miserable.
I get up get dressed, feed and get the DH off to work, feed the goats and dogs, and then work out. After that I shower, dress and finally eat breakfast.
With my morning pills I can't eat for an hour anyways after taking them so it works well for me.
The only thing I have with my workout is some water with a small amount of powerade zero in it. Which to me is more a mental thing that physical.
I try to eat something small before I workout, half a banana or apple. Or a piece of toast or something. I just find I have more energy throughout my workout if I eat a little something.
I WORKOUT FIRST THING IN THE MORNING ON EMPTY STOMACH I FEEL SICK IF I EAT THEN WORKOUT I WORKOUT SHOWER THEN GET READY FOR WORK I EAT BREAKFAST AT MY OFFICE
I get up at 5:30 and leave for the gym as soon as I am dressed and contacts are in. I come home, shower, then eat breakfast. There is a theory that working out on an empty stomach helps burn more calories, but I don't know if that is true. I have read that if you exercise on a full stomach, blood that should be used for digestion is diverted to the muscles, and that that is not a good situation. Again, I don't know if that is proven fact or theory.
I think the theory isn't necessarily that you burn more calories, but that if you work out on an empty stomach, your body is forced to burn stored fat for energy. If I'm remembering the discussion in "You on a Diet" correctly, when you eat, the food you've eaten is temporarily stored in a form that the body can easily access for energy. If you don't use that stored food for energy, it then gets stored as fat. If you don't have any recently eaten food available to use as energy, your body uses the stored fat. So, if you exercise after you've eaten, your body is likely to use that food for energy first, before it uses the stored fat. But in the morning, if you haven't eaten yet, you don't have any recently eaten food that can be used for energy--it's all been stored as fat, so your body uses that for energy. But it's the same calorie burn either way. So to my mind, it's six of one, half dozen of the other. Eating before exercise prevents some of the food you've eaten from being stored as fat; not eating before exercise uses some of your stored fat. Either way, at the end of the day, it seems to me that you end up in the same place. But then, I'm not a nutritionist, so take my opinion for the completely amateur and unqualified opinion that it is.
And is true that your digestive system slows significantly during exercise. Exercising on a full stomach isn't likely to be very comfortable, but for most people it's okay to eat something light and easily digestible (say a piece of fruit or a small smoothie) a little bit before exercising.
I don't eat before exercising in the morning because I generally like to wait at least an hour, if not longer, after eating before exercising (although, in a pinch, I've found that it's not a problem for me to eat something small and light, like fruit) before exercise. My trainer is always after me to eat at least something light because he wants me to have some quickly available energy, but 1) I don't want to have to get up early enough to be able to eat an hour before exercising and 2) I don't want to dedicate the calories to it--I'd rather just have my regular breakfast after exercising, so I don't. But I am usually pretty hungry by the time I finish my workout, so I usually eat breakfast as soon as I get home, before I shower.
Food and exercise
TO EVERYONE
I FEEL SICK
IF I EAT THEN WORKOUT 
I WORKOUT
SHOWER 
THEN GET READY FOR WORK 
I EAT BREAKFAST AT MY OFFICE 
