What happens if you eat before exercising?
For this study, Dr. Gonzalez and colleagues recruited 12 healthy male participants. To obtain control measurements, the researchers asked the study participants to have breakfast and then rest for 3 hours.
For the experiment itself, participants had a breakfast of porridge with milk, and 2 hours after this, they joined a workout that consisted of cycling for an hour.
Previous studies may not be ‘representative’
The researchers also note that their recent findings underline an important aspect when it comes to drawing conclusions about health outcomes based on studies about the effects of exercise.
Many studies, they say, look at the effect of exercise on people who fasted before the workout and draw their conclusions based on that. However, they explain, the results may differ if the participants are allowed to eat prior to working out.
Dr. Gonzalez goes on to point out, “Whilst fasting prior to laboratory trials is common in order to control for baseline metabolic status, these conditions may preclude the application of findings to situations most representative of daily living, because most people are not fasted during the day.”
As for this study, the research team notes that while its findings are compelling, further research that will assess the long-term effects of exercising after a meal needs to be conducted.
“As this study only assessed the short-term responses to breakfast and exercise, the longer-term implications of this work are unclear, and we have ongoing studies looking at whether eating breakfast before or after exercise on a regular basis influences health,” says Edinburgh.
At present, the researchers want to look at how different types of food may affect the impact of exercise, especially on individuals with various metabolic conditions such as diabetes.
“In particular,” continues Edinburgh, “there is a clear need for more research looking at the effect of what we eat before exercise on health outcomes, but with overweight participants who might be at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These are some of the questions we will now try to answer.”
