10 Pre-Workout Meals That Won’t Leave You Feeling Bloated

You know it's crucial to eat before you work out, but eating the wrong thing can leave you feeling bloated and cause stomach cramping when you do start working out, causing more harm than good.

This leads many people to resort to pre-workout supplements, but these aren't good for aerobic exercise and there are many healthy foods you can eat before a workout without feeling even a little bit bloated.

Here are 10 foods you can eat before your workout to make sure you get the most out of it:

Best Pre Workout Meal Ideas

1. Greek yogurt and trail mix

Regular yogurt has twice as much water content as Greek yogurt and many flavoured yogurts rely on massive amounts of sugar, but if you get some all-natural Greek yogurt and add some trail mix for flavor you have one excellent pre-workout meal. As well as lots of protein and calcium, yogurt contains a high amount of healthy bacteria which helps the digestive track.

2. Oatmeal

Carbs have gotten a bad rep in recent years but there are many nutritious carb-heavy foods and oatmeal is one of the most nutritious of them all. Add some fresh or dried fruit and maybe a little bit of honey to give this some flavor.

3. Whole wheat toast with peanut butter & banana

If you've never had a peanut butter banana sandwich, you have definitely been missing out. To make this a lighter meal stick with an open face sandwich and skip the second half all together.

4. Fruit smoothies

This is definitely one of the most delicious options on the list. For an ideal workout make sure you throw a banana into every smoothie—bananas provide a surprising amount of protein and potassium that will give you lots of energy. Experiment with other fruits as much as you want.

5. Open faced avocado sandwich

Avocados have become all the rage recently thanks to their delicious flavour, unusually high protein content and massive nutritional content. Have a slice of avocado and some cheese on a slice of whole wheat bread for an impressive boost of nutrients that will get you through even the most intense workouts without bloating.

6. Almonds

Even a handful of almonds gives you an impressive amount of muscle-building amino acids to work with as well as a nice boost of calcium and many other essential nutrients. You can throw these into a bag of trail mix to get some more variety.

7. Dried fruit

Dried fruit is great because you can buy it in bulk and keep it for a long time, and many commonly dried fruits such as apricots have the perfect mix of nutrients to get you through a long workout. You can get by with just a handful or two of these.

8. Grilled chicken

Skip the sauce and stick with a fairly small piece and you have an excellent protein-packed meal that will give you all the energy you need.

9. Apple wedges and almond butter

Peanut butter and apples are a pretty good combination, but apple wedges and almond butter is even better. Almonds have a much higher concentration of nutrients than peanuts and the same can be said for the butter.

10. Chocolate milk

It might be counterintuitive, but chocolate milk isn't actually any worse for you than regular milk. In fact, many brands of regular milk contain roughly the same amount of sugar as their chocolate counterparts, so why not go for the chocolate option?

Summing Up

Finding excellent things to eat before a workout doesn't have to be hard. Just stick with small high protein meals and healthy fats.