Nutrition FAQ | What should I do if I train during meal times?

NSWIS athletes get a wide range of assistance and support about diet and nutrition to use food as their performance advantage and reach their goals.

Over time there has been some trends in questions which are common from athletes about their diet and what can help support training.

The specific needs of each individual athlete are always different depending on their goal and training loads but below are some explanations for some of the more common questions and scenarios athletes talk to the NSWIS Dietitian about.

What should I do if I train/compete at a time when I would normally eat a meal? Should I eat before or after?

Planning ahead is important. This commonly happens when there is a late night training session right when you would eat dinner, making dinner very late if eaten after training. Usually this then results in inadequate portions for dinner very late at night right before bed can interfere with sleep patterns and can inhibit body composition changes.

It can also leave a long gap between lunch and dinner and not having enough energy for the whole training session. Use the whole day to prepare for that late session to take some of the pressure of that late post training meal to replenish everything you have lost. Energy is going to be used better and more effectively if you can eat more, earlier in the day prior to the session so you have fuel to burn, alternatively you might switch meals and have and an early dinner around 4:30 – 5:00pm and then have your afternoon snack later at night when you are in.

If you have a game or training at 1pm when you might usually have lunch you could have breakfast and a large snack mid-morning, or have breakfast at 7:30 and an early lunch around 10am to fit 2 small meals in rather than one big breakfast and start to feel peckish again as soon as you start to train.

Similarly if you train first thing when breakfast is, increase intake slightly the day before to prepare rather then not train well, get int a hole and then overeat after training when you are at rest.

Got a question?

If you have a sports nutrition question you’d like answered by the NSWIS nutrition team, leave a comment below this article and we’ll do our best to provide an answer.