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What To Eat After A Workout
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Post Workout Meal Ideas
Your post-workout meal is without a doubt the most important meal that you eat the whole day. After any good workout there is a 45 minute window where your muscles look for carbohydrate and protein (glycogen and enzymes) to help restore your muscles.
It is during this window that you need to supply your body what it needs so having fries and a burger is not the answer. We need complex carbohydrates so that we can replace the muscle glycogen lost during the workout as well as to sustain ourselves until the evening meal.
We also need protein so that the muscle can start repairing itself immediately. Muscle repair will continue for another 48 hours but it is important to take advantage of this 45 minute window after your workout. The foods that you choose could make a big difference.
For example Greek yogurt is easily digested and has twice the amount of protein than any regular yoghurt. If you mix that up with some chopped fresh fruit you will have created a good post workout meal. But today it is easy to just throw it all into a blender with some whey protein added and you have a perfect post-workout smoothie.
Or you could have a wholegrain sandwich wrap with some tuna or turkey thrown in. If you add cottage cheese you can also include more good quality protein but the choices of the good protein options to add in a wrap include peanut butter and chicken.
In the Guide to Food for Sports Performance it tells us that if the objective is muscle gain we should eat at least 30 grams of protein after a workout with 35 grams of carbohydrate. If this is taken in within 30 minutes after the workout we get the best absorption.
Nothing happens without a plan, as bodybuilders know they need to think about where and what they are going to eat after the workout before the workout starts. If you are just going to train because you feel like it and do not think about food until you get hungry you will never the results that you want from an intense training session.