How Long Should You Wait To Exercise After Eating?
Q: I ate before going to the gym a few days ago. Care to guess what happened next? Yup, I replicated that infamous projectile vomiting scene from The Exorcist. Trust me, it was disgusting! I think it’s in the best interest of the staff and my fellow gym-goers for me to avoid another repeat of that incident. So yeah, how long should you wait to exercise after eating?
A: It’s commonly recommended to eat a meal before working out to provide the body with the fuel it needs to power through a workout. But as you appear to know from personal experience, eating before a workout can also cause an embarrassing situation. So how soon can you work out after eating to avoid vomiting, as well as other stomach problems like nausea, bloating, heartburn, reflux, cramping, and diarrhea, for example? Well, the amount of time you should wait depends on a few things.
FOOD VOLUME
The more food you eat before a workout, the more food there is for the body to break down. That greater quantity of food in turn extends the amount of time that’s needed for digestion so there’s less food working its way through your system when you work out.
FOOD COMPOSITION
Certain macronutrients take longer to break down when eaten, examples of which include fat, protein, and fiber. Foods that are high in those nutrients tend to digest slower than foods with a larger proportion of simple carbs. The combination of nutrients and amount of water consumed while eating can also affect digestion speed.
EXERCISE INTENSITY
When you eat, the body directs blood flow to the digestive system to help with the digestion and absorption of nutrients. When you exercise, the body directs blood flow to the lungs and working muscles to provide oxygen and nutrients. When eating and exercising are done in close proximity to one another, there’s an increased demand for blood flow but because that resource is limited and can only be supplied where it’s needed most, the blood flow that would otherwise go to the stomach to aid with digestion instead goes elsewhere to support performance. As such, the more intense the exercise, the higher the likelihood of gastrointestinal issues during a workout from the prioritizing of blood flow away from the gut.
The factors that come into play with meal and exercise timing are the amount and type of food and the intensity level of the activity. But also included are the individual variances in physiology that can influence how fast or slow your body breaks down food and how sensitive it is to movement during digestion.1e.g. age, sex, gut flora, overall health, etc. Given those variables that range from person to person and situation to situation, there are too many at play to give a definitive answer to the length of time that should be taken before working out after eating.
The time to wait before working out after you’re done eating is dependent on a number of factors that primarily render the decision an individual one based on what you’re able to tolerate. However, while it’s ultimately a personal matter to figure out the length of time it takes for certain foods and amounts to move further along your digestive tract so you can reduce the possibility of stomach problems when engaging in certain types of activity after eating, there are general guidelines.
For those who have difficulty holding down food when they work out, it’s usually advised to wait 3-4 hours after a large and heavy meal. If you’re eating closer to the beginning of your training session, then what you eat should get smaller in size and lighter in fare. Here, the wait time before exercising should be at least 30 minutes. Both of the provided time estimates for the meal size and type are for the duration you should wait before engaging in a moderate workout but if the activity is more intense, then the wait times may have to increase.
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
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