3573: Fueling Tips for Early Morning Exercisers by Nancy Clark on Sports Nutrition

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[00:01:01] This is Optimal Health Daily, fueling tips for early morning exercisers, by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com, and I'm Dr. Neal Malik, your host and narrator. Hey there, happy Saturday. I hope your weekend is off to a great start, and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, or OHD, where I act as your narrator of popular health and fitness blogs and provide my commentary at the end.

[00:01:26] Now, we have a bunch of shows covering different topics. Just search for Optimal Living Daily in your podcast app to find all of them. And with that, let's get right to it and start optimizing your life. Fueling tips for early morning exercisers, by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com. Many athletes train in the early morning, and many of them report eating nothing before their training session.

[00:01:56] My stomach isn't awake. It's too early to even think about food. I get reflux if I eat. Others report they have better workouts when they eat something simple. So, the question arises, what's the best way to fuel for early morning workouts? Early morning fueling options. Here are some options for fueling your early morning workouts so you're adequately hydrated and fueled.

[00:02:20] 1. Eat a quick and easy snack with about 200 to 400 calories, depending on your body size and workout intensity. Some popular options include an English muffin, toast, bagel or banana with peanut butter, oatmeal, a smoothie, fig newtons, or a granola bar. Coffee is okay. It's a functional fluid after all that boosts performance and yes, helps with hydration.

[00:02:48] 2. Wake up 4 hours before important training sessions or events, eat a simple breakfast like bread topped with peanut butter, then go back to bed. This is a common practice among elite athletes. As one marathoner explained, I don't want to have food in my stomach when I'm racing. If a race starts at 8am, I'll get up at 4, eat a bagel with peanut butter and a banana, and then go back to bed.

[00:03:15] At 6, I'll get up, have some coffee to help wake me up, and then get to the race start. Because I never really sleep well the night before an event, getting up at 4 isn't terribly disruptive. In comparison, a rower reported she used to wake up 2 hours before practice to eat. She became too sleep deprived and decided she needed sleep more than food. So, she started eating a bigger bedtime snack.

[00:03:40] 3. Eat your breakfast the night before via a bedtime snack, such as a bowl of cereal or yogurt with granola. If you have dinner at 6, you'll be ready for a bedtime snack by 9. Choose quality calories. This is your breakfast that you're eating the night before. Limit the cookies and ice cream. And 4. Fuel during your workout. If your stomach isn't awake when you first get up, it may be better to fuel when you're 30 minutes into your bike ride, your run, or your row.

[00:04:11] Make sure you have some fuel with you, like a sports drink, dried pineapple, gels, chomps, gummy bears, whatever's easy to carry and simple to digest. You want to target about 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate, about 120 to 240 calories, if the workout lasts 1 to 2.5 hours, and get 60 to 90 grams of carbs, about 240 to 360 calories, if the workout is longer than 2.5 hours.

[00:04:40] But does the food really make a difference? Before answering that question, let's first address the physiological goals for fueling before morning workouts. 1. To change the stress hormone profile. Cortisol, a stress hormone, is high early in the morning. This puts your body in muscle breakdown mode. Eating carbs and protein can switch to muscle building mode.

[00:05:06] 2. To provide energy and prevent low blood glucose with the consequences of feeling lightheaded, dizzy, and needlessly fatigued. And 3. To be adequately hydrated. 3. To be able to get up early to train. 4. To get up early to train. You might as well get the most out of your workout. In a fueling study, athletes had dinner the night before, and then a 60-minute exercise test the next morning.

[00:05:33] They performed 6% better in the 10-minute sprint to the finish, when they had some fuel in the form of carbohydrate, compared to having had nothing. There was also a 6% improvement when they had adequate water, compared to minimal water. And 12% improvement when they had both fuel and water. If we put this in context, 12% better means running an 8-minute mile in about 7 minutes. Pretty powerful, huh?

[00:06:03] Your body can digest pre-exercise food and use it to energize your exercise, as long as you're exercising at a pace that you can maintain for more than 30 minutes. If you do stop and start exercise, you can still digest the food, but at a slower rate. In another fueling study, athletes ate dinner, and then nothing for the next 12 hours. Those who ate 180 calories in the form of mostly sugar, just 5 minutes before an hour-long exercise test,

[00:06:32] performed 10% better in the last 15-minute sprint, compared to when they ate nothing. So, grab that granola bar or swig of juice. If you're tempted to skip pre-exercise food so you can lose weight by burning more fat, think again. Yes, pre-exercise food will contribute to burning less fat at the moment, but that's irrelevant. The issue is not whether you have burned fat during exercise, but if you've created a calorie deficit by the end of the day.

[00:07:00] Eating excess calories after a fat-burning workout gets you nowhere. All of this means consuming some food and fluid on your way to the gym, spin class, or boot camp will enhance your workout, assuming you've trained your gut to tolerate the foods and fluids. If you're worried about intestinal distress, start small, like consuming a few crackers, and work up to a handful of crackers and then add, let's say, a latte.

[00:07:27] For workouts longer than 60 minutes, the recommended intake is about 200 to 400 calories within the hour before you train. That recommendation obviously varies according to body size, exercise intensity and duration, and personal tolerance to food. If you've been exercising on empty, you will likely discover you can exercise harder, feel better, and get more enjoyment from your workouts.

[00:07:53] For example, research subjects who ate 400 pre-exercise calories were able to exercise for 136 minutes until they reached the point of exhaustion, as compared to only 109 minutes with no breakfast. That's a big difference. After learning this, one of my clients reported he was done with skipping pre-exercise fuel in the name of intermittent fasting. He said, Not eating is slowing me down and taking the fun out of my workout. What about training low?

[00:08:23] If you are highly competitive and have mastered the sports nutrition basics, meaning you eat a diet with 90% quality foods, fuel evenly during the day, and have no disordered eating behaviors, you might try training low. That means training with depleted muscle glycogen or low blood glucose once a week. To do this, eat primarily protein for dinner after a late afternoon workout. The next morning, train without having eaten carbs.

[00:08:53] Warning, exercising depleted like this is not fun, but it stimulates cellular changes that can be performance enhancing if you need to get to the next level. Novice and recreational athletes, however, first need to work on the basic ways to improve performance by surrounding their workouts with food and fueling wisely the rest of the day. You just listened to the post titled, Fueling Tips for Early Morning Exercisers,

[00:09:22] by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach.

[00:09:52] Learn more at coach.com. Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your Vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required.

[00:10:21] Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash apple watch series 12. Dr. Neal Malik here for my commentary. Today's author Nancy made a really bold statement. She said that if you're tempted to skip pre-exercise food so you can lose weight by burning more fat, think again. And she's right. In fact, studies have found that when comparing groups that fast before exercise to those that eat before exercise, both groups lose about the same amount of body weight.

[00:10:52] And both groups lose the same amount of body fat. So the researcher's conclusion was this. Changes to body composition, meaning muscle and fat, are similar regardless of whether an individual fasted prior to training. So focus on what works best for you and improving your performance. Really, the most important thing then is to simply get the workout in. All right, that'll do it for today.

[00:11:21] I hope you have a great Saturday if you're listening in real time. And I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits. I'll see you back here tomorrow. You guys at the end. Thank you.