Eating before and after swimming (and other work-outs)

Life Health & Fitness
1

I know there’s some old wives’ tale about not eating an hour before swimming, and I doubt anyone has ever gotten a cramp and died because of doing so. However, I do have an eating-related swimming problem:

PROBLEM 1: When I swim with an empty or even partly-empty stomach, half-way through my routine I’m bloody STARVING, and it’s everything I can do not to wolf down a KFC #6 combo as soon as I finish (which leads to another question, which I’ll get to in a minute)

However, if I eat on a full stomach, I tend to get nausea-inducing gas, which makes me cut my laps short because I feel like I’m gonna barf.

Is there something I can eat prior to swimming which will allow me to do my work-out without inducing gas? And how long prior to swimming should I eat it?

PROBLEM 2: Also, I’ve had a question about eating AFTER work-outs for a long time, and I’ve already gotten several (conflicting) answers on this:

According to Taiwanese conventional wisdom, one should not eat after a workout for at least 2 hours, because fat conversion is increased immediately after exercise. Of course, they don’t specify what kind of exercise you’re not supposed to eat within two hours of - it seems to me there would be a distinction between aerobic exercise (such as swimming) and weight-lifting.

However, according to an Internet site, one SHOULD eat CARBS within half an hour of doing aerobic exercise. I forget why.

Another former weight-lifter friend of mine told me one should eat pure PROTEIN within half an hour of lifting, but not sure whether that applies to aerobic exercise.

And yet another website I read seemed to agree with the Taiwanese.

So, anyone have two cents to contribute?

2

I’d say listen to your body. Probably not long after a workout you get to feel very hungry. That’s your body telling you it needs sustenance, so feed it. Just feed it something nutritious, not a load of overprocessed junk.

3

Exercise will trigger your brain to store more calories as fat as it thinks you are starving. This is because exercise speeds up the metabolic rate. Of course if you are like me and find trouble keeping weight on then eat immediately after exercising. If you want to loose weight however, then wait before you scoff as difficult as it may be. Wait an hour after exercising before you eat.
Besides, eating before heavy exercise puts too much strain on the body as your stomach is working hard and requires lots of blood, but you are also then forcing blood to other important areas. This will decrease your strength and deplete your energy levels. This strain sometimes causes people to feel sick or suffer cramps due to insufficient blood supply.

4

Protein builds/restores muscle, which eating/drinking protein within 30 mins of exercise assists with. The increased energy needed to build that muscle has a side benefit as it continues to burn fat for this. This applies mostly to weight training but doesn’t always mean that its for purposes of bulking up only - working out with lighter weights/resistance is a great way to keep the body strong without looking like Schwarzanegger.

I tend to do this after both my dumbbell workouts, and after cycling. Some mango or papaya, soy milk (not for health reasons, I’ve just can’t stand normal milk), yoghurt and protein powder all mixed together in a blender. Tastes great.

5

Hey, I just read about swimming competitions and this is what they eat during (this is for long distance) a swim:

* water, coffee, hot chocolate, chicken broth, energy drinks
* pureed fruit 
* Energy products (ex. gel packs, powergel, powerbar…)

So if this is what people take while they are swimming (for sometimes up to 7 hours) I guess you can eat some fruit and a powerbar before you go. I’d say eat but lightly. I have looked for powerbars (not extensively) and have only found some diet bars called soyjoy at watsons. They are meant to replace a meal, so they’re full of protein, vitamin and energy, which is what you want out of a powerbar…

I personally still like to wait a little after I eat before I go swimming because I get side cramps quite easily. I drink lots of water during, say every 20-25 lengts, and I try to have fruit or fruit juice after muscle exercise because it apparently helps release lactic acid out of your muscles and prevent pain the day after.

hope this helps,

Penny

6

I agree with Penny. Sure, protein is necessary for building muscle, but it’s harder to digest than carbs and simple sugars and takes longer for your body to process to give you energy. If you want to eat within an hour of swimming, I’d go for carbs: noodles, dumplings or a sandwich (PBJ or PB and honey are especially good) and a piece of fruit. If you’re in a hurry to make it to the pool and don’t have time for anything else, a piece of fruit alone may suffice. There must be good reason why cyclists stick a banana in their pocket for a mid-ride snack, not a hunk of beef jerky. And, when I used to ride a lot back home, I often brought along fig bars, or the like, and found them to be quick, easy energy.

7

Forgot about that part. I usually have a granola bar before cycling, and carry one or two extras in my pocket if I’m planning to ride more than 60-90 mins.

8

Hi,
You don’t say when you exercise; it makes a difference.
If you swim in the morning, various things get depleted through the night, glycogen stores among them. You should top them up before you exercise. Ideally an hour or so before anything lasting longer than 90 mins, so a shorter swim workout maybe ok 30 mins before.
What with? Carbs are best, try different things, a bagel, Powerbar (you can get them at various cycling shops), toast. Experiment and find something that doesn’t give you any problems.
After exercise, now that is a whole different topic. How long have you got?

9

I usually swim in the morning. If I wake up and can’t go without eating something I’ll have a banana and sometimes a Milo made with hot water and a dash of milk. It take me about 30 mins from bed to pool, and I never feel uncomfortable. I find that I can concentrate much better being warm (bare in mind I swim outside and it’s spring time in Melbourne with an average temperature of 7 degrees when I swim).

After training I’ll try to wait for breakfast (or dinner if I go after work). If I can’t wait I’ll have a muesli bar which is usually enough to tide me over. If I do this, then I find I don’t rush to prepare my evening meal (or breakfast) and wolf it down because I’m hungry.

L.

10

Fairly straight-forward: Your muscles need energy to exercise.

Therefore, prior to a workout, you need to make sure you have enough energy for that workout. Likewise, after you’ve depleted your reserves during a workout, you need to top up your tanks again. This idea that eating too soon before or after a workout is a bad thing is actually detrimental to your performance and recovery (and hence, your performance for your next workout). Sure, if you go and eat a banquet before a workout, you might throw up. Likewise, if you eat a banquet after a workout, you might undo all your good work by over-consumption. However, being sensible about it, it’s logically (and empirically) a good thing to feed your body energy before and after. Actually, it’s good to keep your energy levels at sensible, constant levels throughout the day by never being too full or too hungry (not to mention by avoiding bad food where possible). How one achieves any of that is a very personal thing.

Including a little protein in your post workout meal/snack will increase the rate at which glycogen is replenished in your muscles. Of course, protein is also needed to repair muscle, which gets broken down during exercise.

Taken from wikipedia:

(Lactic Acid – Exercise and Lactate)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic_acid#Exercise_and_lactate
“Contrary to popular belief, this increased concentration of lactate does not directly cause acidosis, nor is it responsible for delayed onset muscle soreness.”

(Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness

11

Thanks for the info GIT! yet annother urban legend uncovered! :bow:

12

No problems. That lactic acid one is pretty common. It’s a waste product though, so your body is going to try to get rid of it as soon as it can. It won’t want to keep it around for a day or two.

I’m especially keen to dispell some of the bizarre ideas Taiwanese have about exercise. The one of girls not wanting to exercise (especially lifting weights) because they don’t want to get big muscles is quite prevalent. The irony is that aside from not getting big muscles (unless they were seriously juicing and doing some pretty severe weight training), the combination of low muscle mass (and muscle doesn’t have to look bulky) and starving themselves really slows down their metabolism anyway.

One of my friends who is seriously into lifting weights (and has trained as a personal trainer) goes to a gym and he says there’s all sorts of bizarre stuff going on there all the time. I’d almost like to go just to check it out as I’ve never been to a gym here. Well, aside from the school gym which is used by me and a couple of other foreign teachers. I pretty well have the place to myself now though since the other main exercise guy left, and none of the Taiwanese staff or students use it.

For a while, there was this guy bringing his kids in every morning at the start of summer and he was doing some seriously crazy stuff with these kids. It was messed up. He’d get the kids doing all these old-fashioned versions of exercises with really bad technique, and he’d twist and pull and stretch them, and in between all that with one kid, he’d have the others running or jumping rope. He’d do that for about two hours every day. The youngest kid looked about eight too. Poor little kids. It was kind of an awkward thing stepping in and telling him to back off though.