Going out for a run is not just about putting on your shoes and starting to add up the miles, if we don’t prepare properly, the risk of injury and suffering from mental and physical wear and tear that prevents us from finishing the training increases.
Food plays a fundamental role in our preparation, knowing what to eat before running can make the difference between a good and a bad race. Our body is nourished by what we eat, so we must take care of our eating habits if we want to have a good physical condition.
In the following article, we will explain what to eat before running, explaining what your body needs and what are the best ways to give it to it. How to start running to lose weight
Table Of Content
1. What does your body need before running?
2. oatmeal with fruit
3. Before running: smoothies
4. The best recipe before training
5. Nuts, your best ally
What does your body need before running?
Before telling you what specific foods you should eat, we must be clear about what our body needs in order to perform at its best during training: According To The Run Experience What To Eat Before Running
The carbohydrates
Carbohydrates or carbohydrates are the nutrients that are responsible for providing energy to our body, so we will need to eat them to be able to endure the entire race. However, there are two types of carbohydrates:
- Fast-absorbing carbohydrates: These types of foods provide glucose to the blood quickly. In these cases, the energy is received almost immediately.
- Slowly absorbed carbohydrates: in this case, glucose takes longer to reach the blood, however, it remains for longer.
Eating well before eating has a lot to do with how we combine these two types of carbohydrates:
- Two hours before going for a run we should eat slow-absorbing carbohydrates,
- During the race, at the end or just before it is better to eat fast-absorbing carbohydrates that help us recover quickly.
Proteins
Proteins are necessary and essential when we train or run regularly, but this does not mean that we should eat them just before running, as their digestion is heavier and could be a problem. In the following article, we will discover which foods are rich in protein.
Oatmeal with fruit
Oatmeal is one of the slow-absorbing carbohydrates, while fruit provides glucose to the blood quickly. Combining both before running will give you the necessary energy to start the race and an extra contribution during the time you run.
Depending on the type of training you are going to do, some fruits or others will be better, usually
- If it is going to be a long-term activity -more than two hours- fruits with a low glycemic index will be better for you, some examples are strawberries, apples or oranges.
- On the contrary, if it is a short-term activity, it is better to eat fast-absorbing fruits such as melon, peach or kiwi.
A good way to eat it is in an energy bar or in a bowl all mixed, if you also add yogurt that can be very good.
Before running: smoothies
Smoothies are a great option to eat before running. In addition to being very quick to make, being delicious and not requiring much effort to digest them, they provide us with all the necessary nutrients to be able to have a good race.
Our recommendation is to make a banana smoothie, very beneficial for its amount of potassium, low-fat yogurt and a little granola to give it a little solidity.
The best recipe before training
Banana is one of the best products to eat before running, it is not surprising that you read it more than once in this article. Wholemeal toast with banana and cinnamon is one of these recipes that you can burn and use normally, as it is one of the best in these cases.
Toast and fruit give you the two types of carbohydrates you need, at the same time without being easily digestible. We have already told you about bananas, but in addition, cinnamon has the ability to keep blood sugar levels stable, keeping it regularly throughout the entire workout.
Nuts, your best ally
When you’ve been running for a while, it’s normal for insulin levels to start to drop. One way to avoid it is to eat nuts before running, whether they are walnuts, almonds or dehydrated fruit, you can eat a handful to better cope with the physical load.
It is important that you know that some nuts are high in fat, which means that we need more time to digest them, so it is not advisable to eat too much, but only a handful.
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