3039: Your Pre-Workout Meal Guide: How To Choose The Right Foods For You by JC Deen on Nutrition Planning

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[00:00:54] So, press play on good sleep tonight because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for good sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily, your pre-workout meal guide. How to choose the right foods for you by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com. And I'm your host and narrator, Dr. Neil Malek.

[00:01:21] Hey there, welcome back to another weekend edition of Optimal Health Daily. This is where I read to you every single day of the year from the best health and fitness blogs we can find. And always with a bit of my commentary at the end. Alright, let's get right to today's post and start optimizing your life. Your pre-workout meal guide. How to choose the right foods for you by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com.

[00:01:49] What should I eat for my pre-workout meal? This question gets asked a lot and it's for good reason. What you eat for your pre-workout meal and every other meal of the day will have an impact on your performance and body composition in time. So of course, you should be concerned about what you're having pre-workout. But you should also know that your goals of accruing strength, muscle mass and losing fat do not hinge on one single meal choice. That's the good news. Very good news.

[00:02:17] Because some people don't particularly enjoy eating a ton before training. Especially if they're training in the morning. So we're going to cover the following. The importance of meal timing and digestion. How food affects you, individual variants and preferences. And pre-workout meal examples and what I tend to eat. Pre-workout meal timing. Does it matter? Depending on what you have read or heard, you might buy into the idea of consuming a meal somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes before training for the best results.

[00:02:46] Mostly meaning maximizing muscle protein synthesis, building and preserving lean mass and building strength. While there's nothing wrong with these guidelines, they can be useful but they're not written in stone. And that's primarily due to rates of digestion. A mixed meal, one containing protein, carbohydrate and fat, depending on the meal size, could take anywhere from a few up to six hours to digest fully. The only time this varies significantly is when you consider liquid meals, which can digest more quickly if they're small enough.

[00:03:16] So if you drink some juice and have a protein shake, the rate of digestion may be a bit faster if you consume very small amounts, only a few hundred calories. But nothing to be alarmed about as long as you're getting ample nutrition throughout the day. An example where a pre-workout meal is most advantageous is for those who train early in the morning after at least eight hours of sleep and no eating. Even a small meal of protein and carbs, 200 calories or less, can serve as a means of elevating protein synthesis

[00:03:44] and preventing the catabolism that may result from the period of no food leading up to training. And since digestion can take all the way up to six hours for normal-sized mixed meals, your breakfast could very well serve as both a pre- and post-workout meal due to how long it'd take for you to digest the entire meal. This is the case of where a diet with a consistent meal pattern of three to five meals spread out during the day makes a lot of sense for those wanting to maintain and build muscle,

[00:04:12] as there will be overlap in the digestion rates of each meal. The longest you'll be going without food most likely is the amount of time you spend sleeping. So, any meal you have could potentially serve as your pre-workout meal. Some people will tend to train mid-morning or mid-afternoon, and if that's the case, then their breakfast or lunch will serve as their pre-workout meal. Their next meal and or post-workout meal would serve as the next opportunity for protein synthesis to begin again.

[00:04:39] Some Rough Pre-Workout Meal Guidelines The takeaway from here is a pre-workout meal should probably be well-rounded, just like anything else, meaning that it should contain protein, carbs, and fat. I'm partial to a 2 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein, but that's just my preference. 2 to 1 simply means 2 grams of carbs to 1 gram of protein. So, if you had 60 grams of carbs, then you'd have 30 grams of protein to go with it. My only reasoning for this is my diet tends to be higher in carbs than protein.

[00:05:09] However, if you're eating a diet that is closer to a 1 to 1 or 1.5 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein, then you might want to reduce carbs in this meal. Another idea is that your pre-workout meal doesn't have to be a shake or smoothie or something small. But if you wanted to have a substantial meal, such as a full breakfast or lunch, which may range between 500 to 800 calories, depending on your preferences and other variables, such as height, weight, your goals, etc., this is fine too.

[00:05:37] From working with coaching clients, I found that most tend to prefer to train 2 to 3 hours after having a substantial meal, which gives them some time to get the digestion process started. Hardly anyone I know likes to go straight into the gym with their belly full. How food affects you. Everyone has their quirks. Some people feel better on certain foods more so than others. Have a dairy allergy? You probably shouldn't drink that glass of milk for your pre-workout meal. Having a version of canned oysters?

[00:06:04] Probably not the best pre-workout meal idea, huh? The point here is this. Just because someone advocates 40 grams of oats cooked in 2% milk and 100 grams of cooked chicken, it doesn't mean you have to eat the same thing. There's always another way to get an ample amount of carbohydrates and protein in a meal leading up to your training. The best advice I can give is to focus on consuming foods that make you feel the best. Some people feel that certain foods are heavy on the stomach.

[00:06:31] Foods like potatoes, meat, pasta, vegetables, etc. It varies depending on the person. So, if you notice a certain food makes you feel a way you don't like and fear it might have a negative effect on your session, then opt for something that makes you feel good. What works for someone else might not work for you. And that's all good. Pre-workout meal examples. Personally, I have very few aversions to most foods. I can eat almost anything without ill effect. But, I know what I prefer before and after training

[00:07:01] and what I prefer to eat at other times during the day. I'm a routine breakfast eater, but I like to train midday. So, I tend to drink a few lattes upon waking and then within an hour or so, I'll have a fruit and dairy smoothie. Here's what it looks like. Pre-workout meal smoothie. 200 to 250 grams of cottage cheese. 200 milliliters of orange juice. 200 milliliters of grape juice. A handful of berries or half a banana.

[00:07:28] If you happen to train later in the day, I've already had a proper lunch, which is typically a serving of meat, some rice or corn tortillas, and typically some type of dairy in the form of yogurt or a glass of milk. When I used to train early in the morning due to harsh schedule demands, I would have a whey protein shake made with water and a banana before heading to the gym within 30 minutes. This was enough food to break the fast and get protein synthesis started, but not affect my training negatively or make me feel sluggish. Take-home points for pre-workout meals.

[00:07:59] Here's a quick list of what's important here. A pre-workout meal should be like anything else, containing protein, carbs, and fat. If you're training in the morning, try to consume something small enough so as not to interrupt your training. And pay attention to your body. What makes someone else feel good might not do the same for you. Remember, there are no strict rules for setting up your pre-workout meal. Experiment and do what works for you. And finally, as long as you're eating enough food throughout the day,

[00:08:25] the pre-workout meal will not make or break your results from training. You just listened to the post titled, Your Pre-Workout Meal Guide. How to Choose the Right Foods for You. By JC Dean of jcdfitness.com And I'll be right back with my commentary. Oikos presents 15 seconds of strength. Here we go. Steve's got a trunk full of groceries and no one to help him. Oh, that's tough, Jim. Looks like a five-trip load at least. He grabs the first bag. The second.

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[00:10:22] I talked about the American College of Sports Medicine, and they have exercise guidelines. But they also have sports nutrition guidelines. And, a lot of what JC mentioned, they would agree with. For a pre-workout meal, they recommend some carbohydrate, some protein, but not too much fat. You don't want to go crazy with the protein and fat especially, because those take longer to digest. Carbohydrates, depending on the source, usually digest much more quickly. And plus, carbohydrates get broken down to sugar fairly easily,

[00:10:52] which can supply your muscles with quick energy. And, what we're learning from more recent data is that the post-workout meal may be slightly more important than the pre-workout meal. What we're finding is, it's almost as if muscles are craving a little bit more protein after the workout. It's like because they've been recently used, they're craving more protein to help rebuild them. And so, what the American College of Sports Medicine recommends is,

[00:11:18] within 30 minutes of finishing your workout, consume about 20 to 30 grams of leucine-rich protein. Leucine is a type of amino acid. Proteins are made up of a variety of amino acids. There are 20 different ones that we know of. And leucine is just one specific type of amino acid. And you can find it in most foods that contain really any protein.

[00:11:41] So, milk, eggs, chicken, turkey, but also, beans, lentils, they contain leucine too. And you only need to consume about 20 to 30 grams of these leucine-rich foods in order to help build and repair that muscle. Now, really quickly before I go, don't forget, we have five shows where we narrate podcasts for you. To find them, just search for Optimal Living Daily, wherever you're hearing this. I hope you're having a great week. Thank you as always for listening.

[00:12:10] I'll be back here tomorrow. So, I hope to see you there, where your optimal life awaits.