What Should I Eat After Working Out

What Should I Eat After Working Out?

One of the most important times to eat would be after your workout. This post-workout meal replenishes your body from all the intense exercise that you put it through. To understand why, it would be best to cover what happens to your body during a workout.

When you exercise, your body uses glycogen to do the work as its main energy source. The strain on your muscles will also damage muscle proteins and fibers. After exercise your body goes into a recovery state that requires you to consume nutrients to rebuild energy storage and muscle. 

Consume Macronutrients After Working Out

Carbohydrates

Consuming carbohydrates after working out will help replenish the glycogen levels you just exerted and after exercise, your enzymes that help with glycogen replenishment are most active. The drop in glycogen depends on how intense your exercise is, the more intense the more glycogen you have likely depleted. As an example, if you just ran for two hours, you will require more carbohydrates than if you did one hour of resistance training. 

Proteins

Muscle proteins and fibers are broken down through muscle strain in training. Due to the slower digestion of protein, you will need a steady dose throughout the day to rebuild those damaged muscles but having protein available after a workout is especially important. Studies suggest your body does require protein within two hours of working out, but it has also been shown that eating protein before and after your workout has a similar effect on muscle growth. This does show that while it is important to have protein after a workout, this can be reduced if you already have protein in your system before the workout.

Fats

Fat in higher dosages is not required after a workout unless you are not consuming very many carbohydrates. Fat is mainly used by the body as an energy source, therefore it does aid similarly to carbohydrates to replenish your body’s field. 

Whether you choose to have and lower Carbohydrate and higher Fat Diet or vice versa, the effects are generally the same.

Combination of Macronutrients in Recovery

All the macronutrients are individually important in recovery but their benefit does not end there. The combination of them together does get the most desired results. Fatty acids and carbohydrates are the primary energy source for protein synthesis. This means that eating a combination will help rebuild muscle more efficiently than protein on its own. For rebuilding muscle it would make sense to eat protein with either carbohydrates or fat for optimal recovery and muscle building. 

Timing of Post-Workout Meal

The timing of your post-workout meal is more important in replacing glycogen storage than hitting an “anabolic window” for your protein consumption. Eating carbohydrates within 45 minutes will have better glycogen synthesis, and waiting longer may diminish its effects. The protein synthesis window is much wider and is less important to eat right away. Ideally, you should be consuming protein throughout the day rather than trying to fit it into this window.

Water

Don’t forget your water! Exercise does deplete those much-needed liquids inside your body. Water is lost through breathing, sweating, and glycogen depletion. Every glycogen molecule is about 75% water, therefore to replace those glycogen molecules you will need more water. After an hour of running, through seat and glycogen lost you can lose around 6 cups of water. This can be more or less depending on how much you sweat but you will lose more water than you think through exercise.

Post Workout Meal Examples

The go-to post-workout meal is a Protein Shake Smoothie and for good reason. You are getting everything you need in a quick convenient drink. Easy to digest protein, carbohydrates, and water. Other examples would be:

Lean Protein, Rice, and Vegetables

Eggs, Oatmeal, and Fruit

Greek Yogurt and Fruit

Post Workout Nutrition

Your after-workout meal is important and getting it in sooner rather than later does help. Eating a well-balanced meal plus hydration will increase recovery, decrease recovery time, reduce inflammation, and build muscle. Be sure to try and nail this meal for the best results after all the exercise you put in.

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