Skipping breakfast before a workout won't help you burn significantly more fat, but it will potentially cause you to burn fewer calories because you may get tired sooner or may not be able to train at your usual intensity. If you cut your workout short in its duration or intensity, you will be burning off fewer calories, including fewer calories from fat.

During aerobic exercise you burn or metabolize a combination of fat and carbs as fuel. As your exercise intensity increases, your muscles need more fuel, and you respond to the increased need for fuel by burning more carbs. The rate at which you burn fat pretty much stays the same regardless of the intensity of the workout. As important as carbs are for fueling vigorous endurance exercise, the amount of carbs we have stored in muscles and the liver in the form of glycogen, and as glucose in the bloodstream, is pretty small. After a night of sleeping, you have been fasting from food and fluids for perhaps as long as 8-10 hours or even more. You need breakfast, or at least a snack, with some readily-absorbable carbs to help fuel the exercise you plan to do later. If you skip breakfast and just go hungry, your limited carb stores are going to get depleted even faster, which will hamper your ability to get in a full workout.

Another thing to consider is that by skipping breakfast when you are hungry, and then working out, you can become so hungry that you respond by overconsuming calories. This ends up working against your goal to get leaner.

In summary, make sure you go into any significant workout or training session with some carbs in your system. As a general rule, a pre-workout meal 2-4 hours before exercise is what most athletes feel best with. The idea is to replenish carbs without causing digestive discomfort during your exercise. The ideal pre-exercise meal is high in carbs, moderate in protein and low in fat and fiber for faster digestion. If your workout time is too early to allow for a pre-exercise meal, eat a carb-rich snack about an hour before your workout. POWERBAR® Performance Bars and POWERBAR® Gel are great choices as carb-rich snacks before working out. If for some reason you just can't eat and you have to go into your exercise session after an overnight fast, try to take in at least 30 grams of carbs per hour during your workout, even if the exercise session lasts one hour or less. POWERBAR® Endurance Sports Drink, POWERBAR® Performance Bars and POWERBAR® Gel are all great sources of easy-to-digest carbs during exercise.

An infection is much more likely to cause a reduction in athletic performance than the antibiotics that may have been prescribed to treat the infection.

That said, there are some side effects of the antibiotics that can have a negative impact on sports performance. One of the most common side effects of antibiotics is diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and abdominal cramping with exercise. Gastrointestinal problems have been cited as one of the major reasons athletes drop out of competition.

Frequently, antibiotics are taken in conjunction with other over-the-counter medications such as decongestants and antihistamines. These medications have side effects that are much more likely to impair performance, including dehydration, heat intolerance and sedation.

One class of antibiotics, known as macrolides (includes antibiotics such as Biaxin/Clarithromycin, Zithromax/Azithromycin, Telithromycin/Ketek and Erythromycin) works by inhibiting protein synthesis, the process that enables muscles to recover from exercise. But most antibiotics will not impair performance.

While some fats are bad, some are actually beneficial. Current public health recommendations, such as those from the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, make this clear. The basic guidelines for fat consumption are:

. Consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fatty acids and less than 300 mg/day of cholesterol, and keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible.

. Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories, with most fats coming from sources of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils.

. When selecting and preparing meat, poultry, dry beans, and milk or milk products, make choices that are lean, low-fat, or fat-free.

. Limit intake of fats and oils high in saturated and/or trans fatty acids, and choose products low in such fats and oils.

Competitive athletes often incorporate other activities during the off-season. Yoga and Pilates increase flexibility and core strength. Outdoor activities like hiking, mountain biking or cross-country skiing give athletes a chance to enjoy the outdoors without thinking about time, speed or distance. Often athletes will go to a new location by car to change up the scenery from their usual training routes. Several POWERBAR® athletes say that trying alternate activities in new places, refreshes your mind and gives your body the chance to regenerate for the next competitive season. Plus, it can be a great way to reconnect with how and why you developed the love for your sport in the first place.

Waiting for brown rice to cook can be a bit frustrating compared to white, but there are plenty of easy and delicious ways to increase your intake of whole grains. One example is the new POWERBAR® HARVEST® Whole Grain, a new product which will be coming to market soon. Each bar contains a full serving of whole grains to help you conveniently and deliciously check off one of the three or more servings recommended per day. The bars are also higher in protein, fiber and vitamin/mineral count. And they taste good, too, with an improved texture - the new POWERBAR® HARVEST® bar scored higher than a leading competitor in a head-to-head taste test.

Another convenient and great tasting whole grain snack is popcorn. Yes, popcorn. Two cups of popcorn deliver a serving of whole grains. And corn is naturally rich in antioxidants. Just go with varieties without trans fat and low saturated fat (which means easy on the butter!).

When deciding which breads, crackers or cereals to buy, check the ingredient list to see what the first ingredient is. If it starts with the word 'whole,' give it a go. But don't rely on product names beginning with 'Multi-grain', 'Cracked', etc. to guide you - they're not necessarily made with whole grains. Always look at the first ingredient.

By looking for easy ways like these, you can bring your whole grain consumption average up above the national average of one serving per day to the recommended three.