Yes! Despite popular belief, eating a fruit- or grain-based snack, such as an energy bar, banana, handful of pretzels, or an apple, just 5 minutes before a workout can boost your energy at the end of the session. Research also suggests that eating 15 minutes before you exercise is as effective for boosting your energy as eating an hour before.

Your body can digest food while you exercise. Your muscles get to use the food to enhance your workout, as long as you are exercising at a pace that you can maintain for more than half an hour. Most athletes train at a moderate pace, hence they can benefit from a pre-exercise energy booster. If you’ll be doing a sprint workout, you might want to eat an hour or two pre-exercise, so the food has time to empty from your stomach.

Your best bet is to experiment with different pre-exercise snacks, to determine when you can eat them without causing distress, and which ones settle best and help you perform at your best.

Having a drink of water right before exercise is also a smart idea, even if you will be exercising for less than an hour. Water is also helpful during exercise. Water can turn into sweat In only 10 minutes (in trained athletes). Ingested fluid moves rapidly, so don’t hesitate to keep drinking even towards the end of your workout.

Be wise, fuel well, and enjoy your high energy

Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD

  http://www.nancyclarkrd.com

“Nancy, in your Sports Nutrition Guidebook, you mention that athletes can eat within 5 to 30 minutes of exercise and get results. It has always been my understanding that it takes quite a bit of time before food can be digested.  I have been taught that food doesn't leave the stomach for about 2 hours.  I also was under the impression that physical activity, such as running, drew blood away from the stomach thusly slowing down the digestion. Thanks for helping me better understand how to eat pre-exercise.”

Yes, believe it or not, 100 to 200 calories of carbs eaten even 5 minutes pre-exercise can enhance your performance (assuming you can tolerate the light snack). If you were to eat a heavy high protein/high fat meal such as a cheese omelet or cheeseburger, the protein and fat would linger in the stomach and possibly talk back to you. But carbs are readily available, as witnessed when a person with diabetes has low blood sugar and is given some orange juice or cola. That sugar gets into the system within three minutes. The same goes for athletes.

As for blood flow, if you are exercising at a pace you can maintain for more than 30 minutes, you can both digest the food and use it to enhance performance. The trick is to practice pre-exercise fueling, so you learn what foods, and how much of them, will contribute to better performance for your body.