Should I run after eating or eat after running

Running is a sport suitable for all ages and is very helpful for everyone to stay healthy. Depending on their specific circumstances, everyone chooses a different time to run, so there are people running from morning to night. But if you run at the wrong time, not only will it fail to achieve the effect of exercise, it may even harm your health. So, should you run after eating or eat after running?

Running or exercising after a meal can sometimes cause abdominal pain, which may be caused by the following reasons:

1. After a meal, the stomach is full of food, and the gastrointestinal tract vibrates during exercise, causing the mesentery connecting the gastrointestinal tract to be stretched, causing abdominal pain.

2. During exercise, blood distribution shifts from the digestive tract to the skeletal muscles, causing ischemia in the digestive tract and leading to spasm of the gastrointestinal smooth muscles, thus causing abdominal pain.

3. During exercise, the body's oxygen demand increases. People who lack exercise usually have small lung capacity, so when they try to breathe hard, they are likely to have shallow and rapid breathing. This reduces the negative pressure in the chest cavity, causing obstruction of blood return to the liver, which leads to liver congestion and increased tension in the liver capsule, causing liver pain, which manifests as pain in the right upper abdomen.

4. Other gastrointestinal diseases, including appendicitis, happen to occur during exercise after a meal.

In the first three cases, the abdominal pain will be relieved quickly after the exercise stops. The fourth situation is an organic disease. The pain lasts longer than the first three, and in most cases it will gradually worsen. For this kind of abdominal pain, you should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in time.

The length of the interval between a meal and exercise largely depends on the type of meal and the amount consumed. Other determining factors include age, physical condition, and exercise intensity. Let's assume that this reader is an average middle-aged person! If you have a large meal before exercise, and most of the meals are high in protein and fat, the interval should be more than two hours; if the meal is small and mainly carbohydrates, the interval can be shortened to 30 minutes to 1 hour. It's best to make any changes gradually, but if any muscular or digestive problems occur, pause.

Generally speaking, it is more appropriate for people who do not exercise regularly or those who are weak to exercise 0.5 to 1 hour after a meal. Formal exercise and intense competition are best done 1.5 hours after a meal.

It is not advisable to do strenuous exercise after a meal, but it does not rule out doing relaxing exercise after a meal. Everyone can do appropriate exercise according to their own conditions, such as walking or doing other light activities, which is beneficial to improving health.