It all depends. Think about when you’re going to work out in relation to when you would normally eat. For example,
-work out first thing in the morning? Don’t eat before.
-work out 2–3 hours after a meal? Just try to make all your meals fairly healthy—not too much fried stuff, vegetables, fruits, whole grains
-4–5 hours after a meal? eat a snack about 2 hours before the work out—> a piece of fruit, a bowl of cereal, a banana with peanut butter, a piece of whole grain toast—
Just make sure whatever you eat before has carbs! Studies show that eating carbs before aerobic exercise (cardio) makes your workout the most effective. I just finished reading this section in my exercise physiology book actually! For whatever you want to do, carbs are your best bet! Basically because they help you do your cardio at a higher level. So you burn more calories, you go faster, you feel better, and your body makes improvements more quickly, so that you can go EVEN faster and burn EVEN MORE calories. (I’m starting to sound like a power thirst commercial (just kidding). But really, carbs really help with this because you can burn energy aerobically longer with carbs. With fats and protein, you go into anaerobic catabolism faster, and that’s bad news.
Good luck!!