What to Eat Before a Workout for Energy: 3 Proven Fueling Strategies

In the Pillar Methodology, we view your body as a laboratory. Every workout is a well-designed experiment—a Stimulus—and what you eat beforehand is a critical part of the equation. The Nourish pillar isn’t about restrictive dieting; it’s about strategically supplying your experiment with the high-quality resources it needs to produce a result. When it comes to energy for your workout, the goal is to provide your body with the fuel it needs to perform optimally.

Table of Contents

The Science of Pre-Workout Energy: It’s All About Carbohydrates

To understand what to eat before a workout, you first need to understand how your body generates energy. For moderate-to-high intensity exercise, your body’s preferred fuel source is glucose, which is stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen. Think of these glycogen stores as the primary battery pack for your workout. When you have adequate stores, you can train harder and longer. When they run low, your performance drops, and you feel fatigued. The rate at which your body uses this stored energy depends on the intensity of your activity; the greater the exercise intensity, the greater the rate at which muscle glycogen is degraded (1). Therefore, the primary goal of a pre-workout meal is to top off these glycogen stores.

Timing Your Experiment: When Should You Eat?

Timing is just as important as the food itself. Eating too close to your workout can lead to digestive discomfort, while eating too far out might leave you feeling low on energy. The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommends a strategy that aligns perfectly with our experimental approach.

2-3 Hours Before Your Workout: This is the ideal window for a complete, balanced meal. It gives your body enough time to digest the food and make the energy available for your session. This meal should contain complex carbohydrates and a moderate amount of protein.
30-60 Minutes Before Your Workout: If you’re short on time, a smaller snack is a better option. The focus here should be on simple, fast-digesting carbohydrates that can provide a quick source of glucose without sitting heavily in your stomach.

Designing Your Pre-Workout Hypothesis: What to Eat

Based on your timing, here are some practical examples of how to fuel your body for a successful experiment.

If you have 2-3 hours:

A bowl of oatmeal with berries and a scoop of protein powder.
Grilled chicken breast with a side of brown rice and roasted vegetables.
A sweet potato with a lean protein source like fish or turkey.

If you have less than an hour:

A medium-sized banana.
A handful of rice cakes.
A slice of whole-wheat toast with a thin layer of jam.

The Role of Protein and Fat

While carbohydrates are the star of the pre-workout show, protein plays a valuable supporting role. Consuming protein before exercise has been shown to increase muscle protein synthesis (2), which is the process of repairing and building muscle tissue. Including a moderate amount in your pre-workout meal can help kick-start the recovery process.

Fat, on the other hand, is a nutrient to be cautious with right before a workout. While it’s a great source of energy for lower-intensity, longer-duration activities, it also slows down digestion significantly. Consuming a high-fat meal too close to your session can leave you feeling sluggish and heavy.

Auditing the Results: Listen to Your Body

The most important part of this process is the Audit pillar. The recommendations above are an excellent starting hypothesis, but your body is the ultimate laboratory. Pay close attention to how you feel during your workouts.

Did you have sustained energy, or did you crash?
Did you feel light and powerful, or bloated and sluggish?
Did you perform better or worse than your last session?

Use this biofeedback as data. If a banana 45 minutes before your workout works perfectly, you’ve found a successful protocol. If you feel better with a larger meal 3 hours out, that’s your new hypothesis to test. There are no failures here, only data that helps you refine your approach.

Conclusion

Fueling your workout doesn’t need to be complicated. By focusing on carbohydrates, timing your intake correctly, and continuously auditing your results, you can create a personalized nutrition strategy that works for you. Answering the question of what to eat before a workout for energy is a perfect example of the Pillar Methodology in action: form a hypothesis based on science, supply your experiment with the right resources, and analyze the data to make intelligent adjustments for long-term success.

What to Eat Before a Workout for Proven Energy