E221: BONUS - Hormone-Friendly Pre-Workout Nourishment (If You're Doing This Wrong, It Could Be Making Your Symptoms A Lot Worse)

I know you’ve had the question - “How do I nourish my body well before a workout without making it complicated?” 

If you’ve been skipping food in the morning, dragging yourself through your workouts, and wondering why you’re so wiped out, I have a secret for you: taking a pre-workout powder is not going to fix everything. 

Here’s what you really need: A focused and simple nourishment plan to get you those nutrients you need to crush your workout and the rest of your day, WHILE building happier hormones. That’s what I have for you today. 

In this episode, I’m breaking down:

• [2:57] Why eating before you work out is essential for hormone health, even if you’re working out at 6 AM
• [4:10] Easy food combos that support your strength, recovery, and metabolism
• [8:00] My go-to pre-workout supplement (caffeine-free!) and how it helps with inflammation, muscle soreness, and even brain fog

You don’t need to do more to get better results - you just need to understand what your body is asking for so it can start to respond the way you want it to. 

Press play on this quick episode and you’ll walk away with a clear pre-workout nutrition plan that will actually work for you. 

Book a FREE Hormone Strategy Call with me

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Chapters

• 2:57 Why eating before you work out is essential for hormone health
• 4:10 Easy food combos that support your strength, recovery, and metabolism
• 8:00 My go-to pre-workout supplement (caffeine-free!) and how it helps with inflammation, muscle soreness, and even brain fog

Transcript

[00:00:00] Leisha: today we're gonna talk about what is a hormone friendly pre-workout option. I am talking about like a pre-workout drink, but I'm also gonna talk about some pre-workout food because I don't really believe in working out on an empty stomach. If you can help it.

 I see actually a lot of misconceptions around pre-workout and those pre-workout drinks specifically as well as what you should or shouldn't be eating before a workout. So today I am going to go through what I have seen be most effective for hormone balance and recovery and building muscle strength training.

All of those things because it is so important. That is such an important part of balancing hormones, is being able to exercise effectively. I personally do really like to work out and I have learned how to do it in a way that supports my hormones and is okay for my hormones versus a way that just adds to my burnout.

And really just, tanks my body essentially. I'm gonna share that with you today, And I did get a specific question asking about pre-workout, so that is what helped me see that this was something that I hadn't talked about before.

 What I wanna start with is when you're using a pre-workout supplement, you know what I'm talking about, like one of the powdered pre-workout supplements that's supposed to help you be able to train harder and be more efficient and effective and all of those things. , That can be so helpful.

But I want you to first check in with yourself and say, Hey, where am I on the burnout scale? if you can only get through a workout. With a like highly caffeinated slash b vitamin rich pre-workout supplement, that is probably a sign that what you're doing is not necessarily aligned with your ability to produce energy for that exercise.

Just keep that in mind as I move forward. But we are going to assume that you are in a place where you have figured out what type of workout is working for you, and you just want a pre-workout supplement slash. Food routine that is going to help fuel you and help keep that safety in your body so your body has what it needs while it works out.

That's what we're talking about today. I am gonna start by saying. That food to me is much more important than what pre-workout supplement you're taking. I do not recommend working out on an empty stomach, and I know that so many of you are working out first thing in the morning. I am too. And it's hard to get something in before you workout early in the morning.

I am right there with you. I understand. What I recommend though is that you still do it and at a minimum you shoot for something with 15 ish grams of protein, 15 to 20 and 15 to 20 grams of carbs ideally. I would like to see something like that. That actually is not that big of a snack before you work out, and it's gonna depend on you how long that needs to be before you work out.

I'm usually fine just doing it right before I work out and then working out 15, 20 minutes before would be great if you're up that early, but just do what you can do. I'm gonna give you some ideas so that you're not just okay, sounds good, but I'm not gonna do it because I don't know what that looks like.

And it sounds too hard early in the morning. This does apply, by the way, if you're working out later in the day, but it doesn't apply quite as much because you probably have had a couple of solid meals. Before you're working out later in the day. So I am mostly talking about morning, but think about it, if you are not eating within a couple hours before you work out, then this applies to you too, even if it's later in the day.

So here are some options for getting that 15 to 20 grams of quality protein and 15 to 20 grams of quality carbs before you out Could be two boiled eggs. That's almost 15. I'll let you get away with it if you need to. And like a banana. So that could be about 20 grams of carbs and 12 to 14 grams of protein based on the size of the eggs.

You could throw a couple almonds in on the side or a little piece of cheese to kind of like put you closer to that 15 to 20 grams of protein. That is so easy, even if you get up like me and you drive to the workout half asleep. You can eat a boiled egg on the way. Okay. I was assuming you like boiled eggs.

My husband hates them. If you like boiled eggs, that could work for you. And you can have it like in the fridge, ready to go where you don't have to think one bit about it in the morning when you're headed out the door or headed to your garage to work out. Okay. Another option is Greek yogurt and some berries.

You just need to look at your carton of Greek yogurt to see how much you need for protein. But it should be like half to three quarters of a cup of Greek yogurt to be about 15 grams of protein. That's also not too hard to get down in the morning typically. I like that as an option.

And you can have half a cup of berries, that's 10 to 15 grams of carbs. If you put a teaspoon of honey in there, that's another five to eight grams of carbs. Just see what works for you. That could be pretty easy. That can also be completely prepared ahead of time. Pull it out of the fridge, wake up for five minutes while you eat it, and then move on with your workout.

So that one's really easy. This one to me is not as great of a morning snack, but if it's like, Hey, you're gonna workout right mid-morning, right before lunch, You could do a couple pieces of Turkey like three-ish. Pieces of Turkey, lunch, meat, and some rice cakes. Two rice cakes. That's easy.

You can do hummus on there if you wanna make it a little toast style kind of thing, you could do that. Cottage cheese is a great option. So cottage cheese in an apple, that could be like somewhere around 15 grams of protein, 15 to 20 grams of carbs pretty easily. Those are all really. Quick options.

And then one more. This is, this one's an offer. The morning, in my opinion, would be like some tuna and some crackers. That would be a great one, in my opinion for mid-afternoon, mid-morning kind of workout. So those are easy. I know none of that is mind blowing information as far as you're like, these are all foods that I have heard of before.

But. If you needed something to make it easy, that is an option. The other thing that I do is I do use protein powder for this sometimes, so sometimes I'll just make a quick little protein shake that's truly just like milk and my qui protein powder and call that good. , You can adjust the ratios of that to make it what you need it to be.

If the carbs aren't quite there, where you need them to be, throw in, five little strawberries or something. Just for me, I don't necessarily want a full smoothie before I work out, but if I did something like that and it had a little bit of fruit in it, then it's not gonna be as thick and like hard to drink, but I can get it down a little quicker.

Some people are not gonna be able to drink milk and then go work out. Totally understand that my belly is fine with it. But that is an option and especially if you could do that 30 minutes before you work out, that's a really great option too. So I always. Use that if I need to, I want you to make sure that you're eating something.

Before you work out as much as possible, and if you've noticed that you're in a routine where you're really not eating before you work out really consistently, then that would be the time to question it and to just really think like, okay, how can I change this even if it's not perfect? Even if it's just something like sometimes I'll eat half an hour.

Bowl before I go workout. Does that fit everything? No, it sure doesn't, but it's better than nothing. Think of it in that context too. Like, Okay, this is what I really need to be doing, but how close can I get? And if you can't get real close, but you can, do more than nothing, then I also think that is a good option too.

Don't bring perfection into it. Okay. And then when we talk about pre-workout supplements, the only one that I actually recommend. Is from Quip and I just really love their products That's the one that I use because I'm already ordering from them. I'm already getting their protein and I just love the quality and trust what they have.

 they have a pure pre, it's their pre-workout supplement. It's blackberry, lemon. I can vouch for it. It tastes really good. I really like it. But I do not recommend the caffeine version. I would only recommend the caffeine free version. That's specifically because I just don't think that.

Adding caffeine before a workout is necessary for your stress hormones and especially for women. I just don't think you need to do it, and especially if you're drinking some other caffeine during the day. I really only recommend at maximum one. Cup of coffee of caffeine per day, and I really don't even think that we often need that much.

So I do not think we need a pre-workout with caffeine. Again, I think that if you do need a pre-workout with caffeine to make it through a workout, then you're doing something that is not. Easy enough for your body where you are right now. You're pushing yourself too hard if you have to have caffeine to push yourself through a workout.

And I think honestly, you're probably prone to push yourself too hard and cause more stress in your body if you're all caffeined up and hyped up. I recommend the caffeine free version of the Pure Pre. And the reason that I like it is it has a reasonable amount of B vitamins. Nothing crazy like some pre-workouts do.

And it has creatine, which is a controversial subject, but it actually can be so good for women to help with our ability to. Do well during exercise, essentially to be able to train a little bit harder. I think that this is more of a better way than caffeine to be able to improve during your workouts.

And it can help with muscle soreness, inflammation, quicker recovery, and interestingly enough, it actually can help support brain function as well. Especially if you are working out and you find. Regardless of you're working out or not that you're struggling with some mental fatigue it can actually help with that too.

 I think that is a side benefit and it helps hydrate your muscle cells so that you can use them better while you're working out, essentially. I really like that it has the creatine in it and it has 3000 milligrams, which is exactly what is recommended for daily.

Requirements for someone who is working out and wanting to gain muscle. And then it also has a really good amino acid profile where it has a lot of the amino acids that we need for muscle recovery, yes, but also for your liver. So this is secretly liver support as well as a pre-workout and it tastes like blackberry lemonade.

 that is why I really like that one. For a pre-workout, I will tell you I have not tried a lot of other ones, but. Honestly, I am more of a like, if you find something that works, why try something else kind of girl. I do use this for my workouts a lot of the time. I don't use it all the time, but I think that it can be a really good option if you like something for a pre-workout.

And I would say, you could also drink this on days you're not working out because those nutrients are really good. At least half a scoop or something like that. I sometimes will do that. That's my take on. Pre-workout and pre-workout nutrition, and I think that it really is important, like I said, to just assess what you're doing and make sure that you're not pushing yourself too hard.

Definitely the other side too though, that you're checking in and you're not just like, oh yeah, I just lift a couple little weights and take a walk and I'm. Not pushing myself at all, because if you're in a season of high stress, that could be totally fine. But when we go too easy on ourselves too, and we're really not moving enough and we're not building muscle at all, that affects our metabolism, that affects our detoxification.

So I do think that somewhere, kind of like in the moderate range is really ideal, and that's why the nutrition and supplement support is so important. We have the links for all the equipped stuff in the show notes. You always get a discount. With my code, especially for new customers and really truly, I have always loved their products, so I think that is a really good option for you and I will see you ladies next time.