Double Edge Fitness

Early Morning Fuel For Workouts

• Jacob Wellock

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Your approach to pre-workout nutrition, especially for early morning training, might need a personal overhaul. Drawing from 20 years of coaching experience, I've discovered that the conventional wisdom of what to eat before training deserves careful reconsideration.

The classic recommendation of 20 grams of protein and 20 grams of carbohydrates before training holds merit, but requires individual calibration. Your muscles store glycogen from meals throughout the day, which means your previous day's nutrition profoundly impacts your morning performance capability. For some, fasted training works beautifully; for others, it's a recipe for poor recovery and diminished results.

Gender differences add another critical layer to this conversation. Women typically experience greater hormonal disruption from high-intensity fasted training compared to men. Dr. Stacy Sims's research reveals that women benefit significantly from consuming both carbohydrates and protein before training sessions, while men—who generally have more muscle mass and glycogen storage capacity—might perform adequately without immediate pre-workout nutrition.

Experimentation is essential. I recommend testing a consistent morning protocol for 1-2 weeks, paying close attention to energy levels, recovery capacity, and daily well-being. Some people thrive with liquid supplements 30 minutes before training, while others need whole foods two hours prior. Equally important are your micronutrients and hydration status—electrolyte balance dramatically affects performance regardless of your macronutrient timing.

Ready to optimize your pre-workout approach? Listen now to discover how to design your perfect nutrition strategy that works with your body's unique needs rather than against them.

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Speaker 1:

all right.

Speaker 1:

So question came in what kind of foods slash macros should you be eating before workout, particularly referencing to early am? The person who asked this question I happen to know very well and they work out really early, 5 am. So there is some nuance to morning training. That is individual. That may or may not work for you. It's a journey. All right, it's a journey, that's all I can say. Some people can train just fine, fasted. Now I've changed my opinion on fasted training to a degree In theory. Before you know, newer research came out, testing with myself.

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I used to believe for high intensity training you needed to eat some sort of carbohydrate at a minimum and to be already have amino acids in the body on board to facilitate protein muscle synthesis, recovery post-workout. I was always in the camp and still do, to a degree of 20 grams of protein, 20 grams of carbohydrates does pretty darn good. That's from the macro kind of standpoint. That's from the macro kind of standpoint. So in theory, our muscles store muscle glycogen. So if you're eating a healthy, well-balanced diet throughout the days, throughout the weeks, and you are training for general health and fitness, so let's just say you're getting an hour or so workout in per day. Right, chances are that whole workout is not an hour of high intensity. There are periods of high intensity in it. So, having I digress your muscles have enough stored glycogen. As long as you're eating a well-balanced diet and your carbohydrates need for you, your muscles are gonna be replenishing throughout a 24-hour period, and so forth. That said, some of this is also dependent on how much muscle you have on your body, for how long your training sessions are All right. So you come in first thing in the morning and what needs to go through your mind is what, how was previous day fueling? So if you're a 5 am person, early morning training, I think you need to be very intentional with your previous day's fueling so that your body has time to replenish those glycogen stores to get the most out of your training in the morning. Now, the reason I do say 20 grams of protein, 20 grams of carbohydrates, is you need carbohydrate and protein to facilitate muscle protein synthesis. So, to optimize your recovery, having both those things on board is going to help to a degree. It's not like it's a you know magic, but your body uses those things to rebuild. If you've taken 30 minutes before, is it a tremendous difference than eating after.

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There's plenty of discussion out there. There's plenty of people that don't eat until later in the day. They have good results. There are also people that don't have good results with that. I have seen people who were diehard fasters. They fasted so they came in the morning, worked out, didn't get their first meal in two, three, four hours after their workout and they struggled recovering. They felt beat down all the time. Muscles weren't recovering sore a lot.

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There could be some hormone play in there to where your body is in a very stressful state trying to recover nuance, nuance. This is a personal journey. I have seen folks who fast and feel great. You know they're, they're in there, they're in the intermittent fasting. You know they're in the intermittent fasting part of their life or part of their lifestyle, so they might not eat till later. They don't eat till later. They feel great, they're getting the results they want. They eat within their eating window and they're satisfied and they're getting enough nutrients during their eating window to recover for the next day's activities, whatever that might be.

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Activity level matters. How much you train matters. How much body fat you have probably contributes to this, because your body, if it's not getting enough post-workout, in theory, it would pull stored fat, run it through the liver, convert it into blood glucose and then it would rush out into your muscles and be stored as a muscle glycogen your body is going to ultimately replenish at some point. Now we can get into the keto and fat adapted and do muscles start functioning off ketones? Yes, they can, to a degree. Your body is still always going to produce glucose. So, no matter what, your body needs glucose for some metabolic function. Fat adapted folks are going to convert more fat into glucose versus just ingesting glucose and getting it into the system quicker. Right, that's roughly how that works. So early morning, this is very personal. You need to play with it.

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Me personally, I don't like eating heavy food before an early morning workout, but I also don't like working out early morning. I mean, I like starting my workout about two hours after I've had some food. That is where I feel great. I feel like I have explosive power, I have energy, I'm awake, it's gone through and digested. But there has been periods of time where I have worked out 5am, done high intensity workouts, lifted heavy weights. This is what I do for myself. So workout is going to have heavy lifting in it. I'm going to want some carbohydrates on board. I feel better when I have carbohydrates in my system. I'm either going to use a supplement called ignition I use first form. It's a carbohydrate supplement and I'm going to mix in some protein powder. I'm always trying to build muscle, so I'm always going to want amino acids around to be able to build muscle and recover for the next training day.

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That I can drink half hour 40 minutes before my workout in the morning. It's digested, I don't feel anything on my stomach and I can do heavy weightlifting and high intensity training and I feel great with that. My perfect scenario is eating usually a smoothie. I blend up blueberries, milk, protein powder and that's kind of my main go-to. That's about two hours before training. If I do that 30 minutes before training, it's no good before training. If I do that 30 minutes before training, it's no good. That's for high intensity. Now if I'm doing low intensity, more aerobic kind of work, I am totally fine doing that fasted. I don't feel the need to have any and this could be mental. The only reason I don't think it's mental for me is because when I do consume carbohydrate and high intensity work, I feel better. I personally feel better. My training session's better, my pump is better, if you will, so I feel better with that.

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Again, you can play with it. Some folks like to eat a banana. Eat a banana, feel great. Train early in the morning, get protein after. Women, on the other hand, do need carbohydrates and protein before training in the morning. It does a tremendous amount of help with managing their hormones. Men don't have the same response to high-intensity training that women do. Dr Stacey Sims goes into a deep dive into this on an Andrew Huberman podcast about the importance of having a small amount of carbohydrates, small amount of protein, prior to training, especially high intensity training, which includes CrossFit, metcons, weightlifting, explosive training, especially high intensity. But I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, she is a proponent of carbohydrate and protein before every training session, particularly for women. Men typically have more muscle, which typically stores more muscle glycogen, which is probably one of the reasons we can get away with not needing as much for training sessions and have as much hormone disruption around that topic.

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So I would play with it. I would, you know, and I wouldn't play with it for one workout. I would set up a morning routine, a morning protocol that you're going to do for two weeks worth of training Maybe just a week, but two weeks. See how it works, how do you feel, how's your recovery? I do like a week at the minimum, but I prefer maybe a two-week window for this, that you're going to do the very similar morning routine before your workout and see how you feel.

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Right, if you ingest too much food and you barf in the workout, you kind of know your digestion is not ready for that. If you try a supplement, something that's quick and easily digested, like a whey protein and a carbohydrate supplement, that might be a great go-to for you. If you fuel really really well the day before and try and not eat in the morning, is there a difference between, if you notice, maybe you didn't eat as much carbohydrate the previous day, especially in the afternoon. Now there's some nuance with eating a big meal and Also going to sleep. Right, there is some support out there that eating carbohydrates before bed can help you sleep. If you're eating yourself into a caloric surplus and you're not using that food and you go and you're digesting it, there's a better probability that you're going to be creating more stored fat because one you're in a surplus. Also, your digestion is going to be working through the evening and nighttime hours while you're trying to sleep. When your digestive system is working, your parasympathetic nervous system isn't coming on as well, so it's not going to be as restful of a sleep.

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So trying to making sure all your calories are in, you know, maybe at least two hours before bed, I find to be optimal for me. Having any sort of heavy caloric intake less than two hours from bedtime, I find it harder for me to fall asleep. Well, but I also find myself not as recovered and that's been pretty consistent for quite a few years. So I do try to keep heavy caloric intake to a minimum before bedtime. But if the previous day I know that I did not get the calories in that I need for training, I know that's going to affect me the next day. So the big takeaway here is knowing the macros and the calories you need for your health and fitness journey and making sure that you're doing that on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, consistently. And then we should be replenishing, rebuilding on a consistent cycle. All right, hope that helps, hope that some insights there, some ideas, but I would play around with it.

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People do need to find out what works best for them. Again, been doing this for about 20 years now and I've seen people have great results and feel great from eating whole food early in the morning to a supplement early in the morning, to fasted early in the morning. It comes down to a very individual thing how your body responds, how your lifestyle facilitates recovery throughout the day beyond the early. Down to a very individual thing how your body responds, how your lifestyle facilitates recovery throughout the day beyond the early morning to set you up for success on the next day. So play with it, try some different things.

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Take note of what you may or may not be feeling or what you expect to feel. If you're feeling drained all day, you know, try and increase those carbohydrates. If you're not feeling drained all day, like you want to take the symptom. And then how are we gonna correct it? Through macronutrients and so forth. The other component of this is that's macros.

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I do think micronutrients matter big time when it comes to training. So having enough electrolytes, minerals, in your body, that's one thing I do like about ignition. It does have a nice mineral complex, but for the most part I'm just making sure I'm getting electrolytes in before training. So I'm making sure I'm getting a good dose of hydration in in the morning, like when I wake up, and then into training and through training. Electrolytes are big factor in how I feel, training and it's just something you need to do. All right, so make sure your electrolyte intake is good.

Speaker 1:

Play around with different protocols for carbohydrates and protein. Those are the two main ones. Not terribly concerned about fat around training Actually, I'm concerned at zero with fat around training. I got enough fat still on my body with fat around training. I got enough fat still on my body and then throughout the day, as I'm in taking my protein, I am getting plenty of fat. All right, so I'm I'm good there.

Speaker 1:

So carbohydrates and protein are the two main macros. Playing with it, figuring it out what works best for you, your digestion and the response you're looking to get out of that. I am still in the camp although it's not totally necessary, I'm still in the camp of getting your biggest caloric intake to support muscle recovery, replenish those glycogen stores. Post-workouts it doesn't need to be right after there's. Many times you have a hard workout, I don't even feel like eating for an hour, but within and around the training window of my day, that is when I do try to consume the bulk of my calories. All right, hope this helps. If you guys got questions on this, hit me up. Throw them in the YouTube comments, so forth. I am happy to help dive deeper into this, dig deeper into the research and so forth. But yeah, that's what I got for you. Love you guys.