How does eating before a workout affect the body?
Do you prefer to eat breakfast first then do your morning fitness routine, or do you skip breakfast altogether? Researchers from the United Kingdom look at how eating versus fasting before exercise can affect a person's metabolism and workout.
The scientists, who hail from several prestigious academic institutions in the United Kingdom — the Universities of Bath, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Stirling — looked into how eating a morning meal before cycling for an hour would affect the body versus the effects of fasting before cycling.
The findings — reported in the American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism — indicate that eating first actually helps the body burn more carbohydrates during exercise.
Not just that, but having breakfast before a morning cycle can actually also help digestion after a workout, the study suggests.
"This is the first study to examine the ways in which breakfast before exercise influences our responses to meals after exercise," says co-lead researcher Dr. Javier Gonzalez.
"We found that, compared to skipping breakfast, eating breakfast before exercise increases the speed at which we digest, absorb, and metabolize carbohydrate that we may eat after exercise."
Dr. Javier Gonzalez
