There are so many arguments about what are the best foods to eat before and after a workout, and there are so many people with a set idea of eating or drinking certain things after working out with no room to change or try anything different. You don’t have to change everything you’re doing, if it currently works then carry on, but do not be afraid to try something different and experiment.

Here we will have a look at the different foods and drinks that you can consume before and after a workout and what could work best.

We must also remember that your specific goal, be it muscle building or weight loss, as well as YOUR own body type and weight will determine what you eat and more importantly HOW MUCH of each macro-nutrient you eat, not only for your pre and post workout meals, but also for every single meal you eat throughout the day.

Pre workout Nutrition

Let’s start with pre workout nutrition. When you weight train you exert a lot of energy, and thus your body will need energy, so do not be scared to eat some carbohydrates before training, even when dieting down.

Photo credit: Your House Fitness 

There are 2 types of pre workout meals, depending on the time of day you train. These are:

1. Your first meal of the day, i.e. breakfast. So if you workout first thing in the morning this will act as your ‘breakfast’ pre workout meal.
2. If you train in the afternoon or evening, then the meal you eat directly prior to your training will be your ‘during the day’ pre workout meal.

For both options, the best is to have a balanced meal containing protein, some complex carbohydrates as well as some fat about an hour or an hour and a half before you workout. You do not want to have too big of a meal and anything too heavy which will cause your stomach discomfort while you exercise.

You could alternatively have a protein shake, but the reason I wouldn’t recommend taking a shake or any liquid form of food before working out is so that you can keep fuller throughout your training. I have experimented with both and tend to become very hungry during my workout if I have a protein shake (even with some carbohydrates) and this can sometimes affect my energy and strength levels.

BUT on the other hand there are many people who would rather not eat anything before their workout as they become uneasy and their stomach does not handle the food well while they are training. If this is you, don’t worry, maybe try a protein shake or some form of liquid shake and see if you can manage that to start off with.

For the first option, the breakfast pre workout meal, here is an example of a meal you could have:

• 2 slices whole-wheat toast/Bowl of oats
• 1 banana
• Small protein Shake/1 Tsp of peanut butter

This is a great combination of protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and fat to get you started for the day and get you going for your early morning workout.

For the second option, the during the day pre workout meal, we will assume you would have eaten at least one or two other meals already throughout the day. So in an effort to not complicate things, an example of a simple meal could be:

• 1 Apple
• A portion of chick peas/butter beans
• A portion of rice/Sweet potatoes/Cous cous

Post workout Nutrition

After a strenuous and intense exercise session, your body (and muscles) needs nutrients and amino acids to help them repair and recover, so the sooner you feed your muscles after training the better.

For post workout, I recommend a liquid meal FIRST (straight after your gym session). The reason being the liquid will digest quicker than a full meal, and you want to get the nutrients to your muscles as quick as possible to start the recovery and growth process. Then about an hour and a half to two hours after your liquid meal, you can eat a whole food meal consisting of protein and carbohydrates.

So lets start with the liquid meal. The easiest option is to take a protein shake. Mix some whey protein with some water or even better with some milk. To this you can also add some simple carbohydrates, such as apple juice or just plain glucose. There are many studies showing that taking in a simple carbohydrate source will ‘spike’ your insulin, driving more nutrients into your muscles. But honestly I believe you can use almost any carb source, even a low gi source like oats. There is also a few studies showing that, by consuming your protein first, then after a few minutes, taking in your carbohydrates, will elevate your growth hormone levels. Something to think about.

Experimenting

I have experimented with a few things regarding a post workout meal. I wanted to see if I would experience any different or beneficial results by consuming different things.

I tried each of these for a few months:

1. Whey protein with glucose

Versus

2. Whey protein with oats

I never saw or felt much of a difference, thus the reason I stated you can use almost any carb source.

I then tried this:

1. Whey protein

Versus

2. Plain organic full cream milk  (about 500 – 800 ml)

Versus

3. Whole food meal (Rice/Potatoes and Chicken/Fish)

With this, I really wanted to see if the benefits of this ‘post workout whey shake’ would over power drinking just plain milk or eating a normal whole food meal after a workout. Again I never saw or felt much of a difference.

The one problem with marketing nowadays is that many people have been bombarded (by supplement companies) with the idea that after training the ONLY thing you MUST consume is a protein shake.

Has it ever happened that you came home after gym, and forgot you had run out of whey protein? With all hell braking loose, you jumped in your car and raced to the nearest pharmacy to pick up some whey protein in order to have your ‘post workout shake’ in time, so you do not miss that perfect ‘window of opportunity.’

The Conclusion

By all means if you can get your hands on some rice/pea protein, it’s a good thing to have post workout as it does contain all the branch chain amino acids you need as well as glutamine to help you recover. But if not or if your whey suddenly finishes, do not worry so much and run around screaming, just blend your own smoothie with fruit and peanut butter (you can use soya milk or almond milk with it) OR alternatively just eat a whole food meal.

After training, your muscles have been severely strained and broken down so they will absorb a lot of what you feed them, even if you think it’s going to take ages to digest. Too often people tend to over complicate things. Keep things simple.

You May Also Like:

Related Images:

The post What Should You Be Eating Before And After Your Workouts? Pre And Post Workout Nutrition Explained Simply appeared first on FitNish.com.

Many people have a relatively good idea of which foods are healthy and which are not, or at least what foods are healthier than others.  But what most people are not aware of is the particulars of timing what you eat.  What I am talking about is, eating certain things at certain times.

By manipulating exactly WHAT you eat at certain times, you are able to an extent, enhance certain processes, such as muscle building, or blunt other processes like fat storage.

Now there are many opinions on the actual effectiveness of ‘meal timing,’ but I really believe that it can make a significant difference.  But, the other very important factor that you HAVE to control when wanting to lose or gain weight is the total number of calories that you take in.

Now first and foremost, you need to try and consume some protein at each meal.  By combining protein with other foods, you slow down the digestion of the meal, thus ensuring your blood sugar levels remain more or less constant, and do not jump too high and then crash.  You can also achieve this by adding foods high in fiber to your meals, such as vegetable like broccoli, green beans, spinach etc.

One of the most important points to remember is to not consume carbohydrates alone and after not eating for a long period of time, especially the fast acting carbohydrates which have little nutrients and fiber, such as sugar, sweets, fruit juices, soft drinks etc.  When you do consume these types of carbohydrates your blood sugar levels rise quite rapidly and then can come crashing down leaving you tired and lethargic.  Another effect which can take place when eating these foods alone is fat storage.  If the body’s carbohydrate stores are full it can end up storing those calories as fat, especially since these sugary foods cause the body to digest them very quickly forcing the body to actually do something with the calories quite rapidly.

This will still depend on a few other factors like your metabolism and how much carbohydrates you have had within the past few days.

For example, if we take a bodybuilder who has been restricting his carbohydrate intake for the past few days, he could be quite depleted, so when he starts to increase his carbohydrate intake, and only eat carbs, instead of gaining fat his muscles will actually use those carbohydrates to fill up, since your body stores carbohydrates within your muscles as muscle glycogen.  That’s why so many bodybuilders a few days before a show restrict their carbohydrate intake and then start to eat A LOT of carbohydrates on the day before or on the day of the show.  This really helps to give their muscles a full rounded and pumped look.  So we can see here that by manipulating what you eat really can make a difference.

Now the three times of the day when you really want to maximize the effects of the food which you eat are:

• Breakfast.
• Before your weight workout.
• After your weight workout.

Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day and far too many people eat the wrong things here or just skip it altogether.  By eating a good balanced breakfast you provide your body with the nutrients it needs, to provide you with energy for the rest of the day and since you have not eaten anything in eight or so hours by eating breakfast you can put your body into an anabolic state and get the muscle repair process started.

Anabolic state: A state of muscle building.
Catabolic state: A state of muscle breakdown.

An ideal breakfast would consist of a small piece of fruit, a large glass of chilled water, a few eggs and some form of carbohydrates, e.g. oats.  What I have just suggested contains all the different macronutrients, protein, fat and carbohydrates.  Now the portion sizes will depend on each person and on how active each of us is, but be sure to include a bit of everything.  Personally I have found that when I remove the carbohydrates (oats) from my breakfast (particularly when restricting my calories to lose fat) I have very little energy throughout the day and I feel very flat and lethargic.

But again it must work for you.

Nutrition before your workout can be manipulated in many ways.  Its probably not as important as breakfast and your post workout meal, but it can definitely help.  For instance if you workout long and hard you will need some carbohydrates to fuel your training, and as always you will need some protein to go with it.  But there are many people who just cannot eat a meal and then go train due to tension in their stomach even after two hours after eating.  So be sure to have a small meal at least one and a half to two hours before you train consisting of protein and carbohydrates. Some chicken and rice could do just fine.

.

If you have read many fitness magazines out there I’m sure you will have read that after training you need simple carbohydrates like sugar or glucose to spike your insulin in order to refill your muscles and get as much nutrients in them as possible in that 30 minute ‘magic’ window after you train.  Now I do not dispute these claims, but you really don’t need to worry too much about the exact type of carbohydrates to use.

These days there are certain supplements out there which are made specifically to use straight after gym for these exact reasons, but one look at the ingredients and you will find you are just paying for sugar in fancy packaging.

So, yes, your muscles will be fatigued and naturally will need some nutrients to repair them.  The sooner you can get to them the better.  What to eat?  What I would suggest is initially a protein shake with some milk and a banana followed by a whole meal after about an hour or two consisting of vegetables, protein and carbohydrates, such as sweet potato, green beans and chicken.  The reason for all of this is that the protein shake in liquid form digests much quicker than actual food so it can get to work immediately to repair your muscles.  Then once the process is started and you have something in your system you can move onto a decent meal.  You could always just skip the shake and consume the meal straight away as well.

Lastly eating at night, or before bed.  There are a lot of different opinions on eating at night and just before your sleep saying it will cause excessive weight gain since you are not doing anything physical so therefore you will end up storing what you eat as body fat, especially if you eat carbohydrates at night.  I do disagree with most of this.  If you are working out almost every day relatively intensely, you are going to be hungry at night.  So then what do you do?  What do you eat?  Well, go for a high protein snack.

It would be a wise idea to stay away from carbohydrates before bed since when you sleep you naturally release growth hormone, which helps repair your muscles and various tissues within your body as well as help you recover from your day to day activities.  Now when you eat carbohydrates (especially simple carbohydrates like sugar, and sweets) your body releases insulin which to an extent blunts the release of growth hormone.

This is a process which you really do not want to intentionally stop as you should try to maximize it while you can since as you age you naturally produce less and less growth hormone.  So at night try to stick to meals containing protein and maybe some good fats.  The good fats can be found in nuts, olives, avocados etc.

Related Images:

The post What and When To Eat | Is Meal Timing That Important? appeared first on FitNish.com.