What should I eat before a marathon? Is chocolate okay?

What should I eat to improve my sports endurance? Endurance refers to the body's ability to work for a long time and overcome fatigue. All fatigue is related to the body's energy supply system and the excitement of the nervous system. Therefore, to improve sports endurance, we must first consider improving the energy reserves and supply required for exercise, improving cardiopulmonary function, and improving the ability to resist fatigue such as lactic acid.

In order to improve athletic ability, attention should be paid to adequate intake of staple foods (carbohydrates) and supplementary sugars in dietary nutrition, so that sugars account for 60%~70% of the total energy supply, in order to increase function and increase glycogen reserves in the body.

Increasing the intake of staple foods can avoid fatigue, ketoacidosis, dehydration or hypoglycemia during exercise due to insufficient carbohydrate intake. The fat supply should not exceed 30% of the total energy supply, especially high-fat food should not be consumed within 6 hours before exercise, because high-fat food will consume too much oxygen and energy after entering the body, which is not conducive to physical performance during exercise.

Therefore, it is advisable to consume a low-fat, low-protein, high-carbohydrate diet 1 to 4 hours before exercise to promote digestion, absorption and conversion of food into glycogen reserves.
Back to chocolate, dark chocolate has 30% fat and 61% carbohydrates, while milk chocolate has 39% fat and only 49.9% carbohydrates, which does not meet the low-fat, high-carbohydrate standard we mentioned earlier.