Post Workout Nutrition

You just finished a hard workout and now you are starving. What do you grab to eat? What and when you eat after a workout can have a big impact on your body. Right when you finish a workout you need your body to start recovering to get ready for the next one. A key part of that recovery is your nutrition. Looking at the big picture you need carbohydrates to replenish the fuel sources that you used, protein to repair and build new muscle tissue, and of course fluids to rehydrate.

It is ideal to have a carbohydrate rich snack within 30 minutes of finishing a workout. This will allow the body to restore the glycogen that it used during the activity. As for protein you will want to get around 15-25 grams within an hour of finishing the workout. This will help enhance the muscle rebuilding and repair process. During exercise, we can lose a lot of fluid, which is typically the biggest part of why one will lose weight after one workout. Most times water is all that you need to rehydrate if it was a lower intensity and less than an hour long.

What is written above is just a starting point and a recommendation. Different bodies have different needs so this may not work for you. Since we are all different, a lot of nutrition advice has to be changed slightly to fit individual needs. You may need different timings, amounts, and so on. My suggestion is to try this out and switch things up a bit to find what works best for you. Timing and what we refuel our bodies with can play a big role in the adaptations that happen from our workouts. Take advantage of the little things that we can do that will eventually make big changes!

Citations

“The Training Edge The Latest for Fitness Professionals.” CEU Corner: Nutrition & Exercise - Timing Is Everything,magazine.nasm.org/american-fitness-magazine/issues/american-fitness-magazine-spring-2017/nutrition-exercise-timing-is-everything.