Night Before Nutrition for Morning Workouts

[julianoliver]

This is me too, making sure that I fuel workouts well but also always trying to lose the last 5 lbs (which I keep finding again ). I workout in the morning like you, usually around 7:30. With my meal plan (below) I can fuel any morning workout just fine without anything between dinner and the ride itself (Mid-Volume SSB, General Build and Rolling Road Race) which is great. I get off the bike I hit the shower and have breakfast.

• Breakfast: overnight soaked oats (1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup eggwhites, 3 oz greek yogurt, 1/2 tbsp chia seeds, 1/2 tbsp flax seeds, 1 oz raisins, 1 grated banana, 1/3 cup frozen berries all mixed together and left in the fridge overnight), coffee
• Lunch will be 2 slices Ezekiel bread with 1/2 avocado, handful or arugula, lemon juice and a slice of turkey, a piece of fruit, 1 oz of mixed raw nuts, 2 oz raw celery, 2 oz raw carrots, coffee.
• For Dinner I try to keep it to just what I need (around 500 calories) with some protein (1/2 a chicken breast is common), some carbs (1/2 cup of brown rice) and a pile of vegetables.

I will sometimes get hungry in the afternoon and I’ll go for a banana and a protein shake made with water. This does a good job of keeping hunger at bay until the next meal.

Occasionally I’ll do a workout later in the morning, say 9am. If it’s a short workout, I’ll just still do it without any food. If it’s longer, I’ll have 2 slices of toast with a high sugar spread on it (honey or strawberry jam) and grab a cup of coffee. This just puts some sugar in me to get things going and seems to do the trick.

I try to do strength work 4 days per week on the same day as my hard workouts (Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun). I used to spread it out like you suggested and do gym work on my recovery days, but Chad on a few podcasts suggested that wasn’t the best idea. There’s a comprehensive thread on strength training that is worth checking out, in it Chad recommends:

@chad

As far as scheduling your strength workouts so as not to negatively impact your endurance training, our recommendation is to separate them as much as possible but do them in the same day rather than schedule strength work on a recovery day. This allows the cell signaling the least interference, your muscles the best chance at reaping both strength and endurance benefits concurrently, and your body the opportunity to fully recover between hard workouts. And it’s prudent to recognize that the best endurance athletes will never be amongst the best strength athletes and vice versa.

I was hesitant to do this since I thought my body would be too fatigued to do a good gym workout on the same day and a tough TR workout. But I tried it, and it works out better. My strength work hasn’t seemed to suffer, but I get a lot more of a return on my recovery days (of course!). I’ve found that it’s more of a mental battle than anything else to double-up those days.