Eating breakfast before exercise may “prime” the body to burn carbohydrates during exercise and more rapidly digest food after working out, University researchers have found.
Eating breakfast before exercise may “prime” the body to burn carbohydrates during exercise and more rapidly digest food after working out, University researchers have found.
Scientists from our Department for Health, working with colleagues at the universities of Birmingham, Newcastle and Stirling, were studying the effect of eating breakfast versus fasting overnight before an hour’s cycling. In a control test breakfast was followed by three hours’ rest.
The volunteers ate a breakfast of porridge made with milk two hours before exercise.
Post exercise or rest, the researchers tested the blood glucose levels and muscle glycogen levels of the 12 healthy male volunteers who took part. They discovered that eating breakfast increased the rate at which the body burned carbohydrates during exercise, as well as increasing the rate the body digested and metabolised food eaten after exercise too.
Read more at University of Bath
Image: New research published in the American Journal of Physiology suggests that eating breakfast could 'prime' the body to burn carbohydrates during exercise and more rapidly metabolise foods after working out. (Credit: Javier Gonzalez)
