A sports snack before your workout can help you perform better and get through your sports session with more ease and well-being. Find out which snacks are recommended here to play 22Bet Ghana. The easiest sport you can imagine.
Falling into a hunger hole in the middle of your workout can not only impair your athletic performance, but also make you feel exhausted, tired and unmotivated more quickly. Depending on the type of sport and time of day, it can therefore be a good idea to eat something just before exercising. However, these sports snacks should preferably not be sugary bars or energy drinks – instead, healthy snacks consisting mainly of carbohydrates and proteins are recommended.
Sports snacks: when and how to eat before sport?
Make sure you always start your workout well-fuelled. You should not feel any signs of hunger. Especially if it’s been a while since your last big meal, it can be worth having a few sports snacks. Otherwise you can quickly feel sluggish or light-headed during exercise, warns the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t feel full either. If you eat too large a meal too close to your sports session, this can also lead to more sluggishness and tiredness. The Mayo Clinic therefore recommends the following rules of thumb:
- Eat a large meal, such as a filling lunch, about three to four hours before your workout.
- Eat a smaller snack one to three hours before exercising.
Sports snacks: what should they contain?
A smoothie with sufficient carbohydrates and protein is a good pre-workout sports snack.
According to Healthline, a combination of carbohydrates and proteins is recommended for pre-workout sports snacks. This is because carbohydrates ensure that our glycogen stores are well filled. Glycogen stores are in turn important as they are available to us as a central source of energy during sporting activities. The following generally applies to all types of sport: if our glycogen stores are empty or not sufficiently full, our performance during workouts also decreases. Carbohydrates are therefore an important component of a pre-workout snack.
According to Healthline, protein has also proven its worth as a pre-workout snack. Scientific findings suggest that sufficient protein in connection with strength training is important for building muscle mass. It is crucial that the daily amount of protein is sufficiently high. Eating protein-rich foods before or after training can also increase training success. For endurance athletes, a protein-rich snack before training can promote regeneration and compensate for muscle damage.
The third macronutrient, fat, does not help you directly before training. According to Medical News Today, our body digests fat much more slowly than carbohydrates, for example. This means that during a workout, it cannot use fat as an energy source that we have just consumed a few hours ago. Nevertheless, it is important to eat a balanced diet throughout the day that also contains sufficient healthy fats. So now you have everything you need in order to start your new sport routine. Better not to do sports on an empty stomach. It can easily stress out your body for the whole day. That makes you eat more throughout the day.
These snacks are suitable before training
The following sports snacks are rich in carbohydrates and proteins and are therefore suitable before training:
- Smoothies made from fruit, (soya) yoghurt or (soya) quark, possibly some protein powder and plant-based drink, e.g. banana smoothies
- Fruit with (soya) yoghurt
- A portion of porridge or muesli with soya milk
- sugar-free, homemade muesli bars
- Homemade energy bars
- a piece of (wholemeal) bread with hummus