Most people don’t need to eat anything during a workout. If your session lasts under 60 minutes, water alone is enough to keep you performing well. But once you push past that hour mark, especially at moderate to high intensity, fueling during exercise becomes increasingly important for maintaining energy and delaying fatigue.
What you eat mid-workout, how much, and in what form depends almost entirely on how long and how hard you’re going. Here’s how to get it right.
When Mid-Workout Fuel Actually Matters
Your muscles store enough carbohydrate (as glycogen) to power roughly 60 to 90 minutes of hard exercise. For a 30-minute strength session or a casual 45-minute jog, those stores won’t run dry. Water is all you need.
The picture changes for high-intensity efforts lasting longer than 90 minutes. Cycling, long-distance running, soccer matches, hiking, and multi-hour training sessions all challenge your fuel supply and fluid balance. In these situations, eating during the workout measurably improves performance and delays the point where your body hits a wall. The benefit scales with duration: a two-hour bike ride demands a different fueling plan than a three-hour marathon training run.
Carbohydrates Are the Priority
Carbohydrate is the only macronutrient your body can break down fast enough to use as fuel during exercise. Fat digests too slowly, and protein isn’t an efficient energy source in the middle of a session. So mid-workout eating is really about getting the right amount of carbohydrate at the right time.
The general recommendation is 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour for exercise lasting one to two and a half hours. For context, a medium banana has about 27 grams of carbohydrate, and a typical sports gel contains 20 to 25 grams. So you’re looking at roughly two to three small servings per hour, spaced evenly.
For longer efforts in the two- to three-hour range, aiming for 60 to 80 grams per hour produces the best performance gains. Research on cyclists completing two-hour rides at moderate to high intensity found the greatest benefit in that range. Ultra-endurance events (think ironman triathlons or ultramarathons) push the recommendation up to about 90 grams per hour, though that takes practice to tolerate.
Why Mixing Sugar Types Helps
Your gut can only absorb about 60 grams of glucose per hour through a single transport pathway. Eating more than that from glucose alone won’t give you extra energy. It’ll just sit in your stomach and potentially cause cramping or nausea.
The workaround is combining glucose with fructose, which uses a separate absorption pathway. This lets your body process more total carbohydrate per hour, reaching those higher 80 to 90 gram targets when needed. Mixing the two sugar types also tends to cause less stomach distress than taking in large amounts of glucose alone. Many commercial sports drinks and gels already use this glucose-fructose blend for exactly this reason.
Good Mid-Workout Food Options
Liquid and solid carbohydrate sources produce nearly identical blood sugar responses during exercise, so the best format is whichever you can tolerate most comfortably. A sports drink and an energy bar with the same carbohydrate content will fuel you equally well. That said, many people find liquids and semi-solids easier to get down while moving.
Practical options include:
- Sports drinks: A 6 to 8 percent carbohydrate-electrolyte solution sipped every 10 to 15 minutes is one of the most studied and reliable fueling strategies.
- Energy gels: Convenient and easy to dose, typically 20 to 25 grams of carbohydrate per packet. Chase them with water.
- Bananas: About 27 grams of carbohydrate each, easy to digest, and portable.
- Raisins or dates: Calorie-dense, mostly simple sugars, and gentle on the stomach.
- Low-fat yogurt: Works well during lower-intensity longer sessions where you have a moment to eat.
- White bread with jam or honey: Quick-digesting carbs with minimal fat or fiber.
What to Avoid Eating Mid-Workout
Fat slows gastric emptying significantly. When you eat fatty foods during exercise, they sit in your stomach longer, layering on top of other stomach contents and increasing the chance of nausea, bloating, and cramping. Save the nuts, cheese, and avocado for before or after.
High-fiber foods cause similar problems. Whole grains, raw vegetables, beans, and high-fiber bars all take longer to break down and can cause gastrointestinal distress when your body is diverting blood flow away from digestion and toward working muscles. The mid-workout window is one of the few times when simple, low-fiber, low-fat carbohydrates are genuinely the better choice.
What About Protein During a Workout?
For most people, protein during exercise isn’t necessary. Consuming protein before or after your session is far more impactful for muscle recovery and growth. Eating 20 to 40 grams of high-quality protein in the hours surrounding your workout stimulates robust increases in muscle protein synthesis, and the timing window is more flexible than people once thought (anywhere from immediately before to a couple hours after).
There is one exception. If your carbohydrate intake during a long session is falling short, perhaps because of stomach issues or limited access to food, adding a small amount of protein can help maintain blood sugar, reduce muscle breakdown, and partially compensate for the missing carbs. This is a backup strategy, not a primary one.
Hydration and Electrolytes
Fluid is just as important as food during prolonged exercise. A practical target is 150 to 300 milliliters (roughly 5 to 10 ounces) every 15 to 20 minutes, adjusted based on how much you’re sweating. Smaller, frequent sips are easier to absorb than gulping a large amount at once.
When you sweat heavily, you lose sodium along with water. For prolonged exercise, especially in heat, replacing 300 to 600 milligrams of sodium per hour helps maintain fluid balance and prevents the performance drop that comes with dehydration. Most sports drinks contain sodium in this range. If you’re using gels or whole foods instead, adding an electrolyte tablet to your water bottle or eating a few salted pretzels can fill the gap.
A Simple Framework by Duration
For workouts under 60 minutes, water is sufficient. No food needed.
For sessions lasting 60 to 90 minutes at moderate to high intensity, small amounts of carbohydrate (around 30 grams per hour) can help, especially if you didn’t eat well beforehand. A sports drink or half a banana is enough.
For efforts lasting two to three hours, aim for 60 to 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour from a glucose-fructose blend, paired with regular fluid and electrolyte intake. This is where a deliberate fueling plan makes a real performance difference, and practicing your nutrition strategy during training sessions helps you figure out what your stomach tolerates before race day.