When to eat after a workout...?

[Apprentice]

When should u eat? And what should you eat?

I heard wait an hour, and i also heard right after...carbs or protien should be eatin??? which and why?

[ElPietro]

The most ideal way to go about it is to take in a whey protein shake right after your workout, and then eat 45min-hour later. The whey will not take any real digestion time and will go straight to your muscles where it will aid in recovery. Then eat a bit later to provide further nutrients to your body. If you are bulking you would want to consume some carbs post-workout as well.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

when your tummy starts growling.

[Repulsive Monkey]

Although depending upon different peoples habits and strengths some people seem to be able to eat whenever and seem to have little effects (I supspect that they only have little short term effects in all though!). However eating after training as a rule is never the best as one immediately tries to stimulate its function but with a reduced amount of oxydised blood thus becoming deficient. However light foods and easily digestable foods can circumvent this disharmony from time to time but I personally wouldn't make it a habit.
However I do like the Taoist approachof" eat when hungry, sleep when tired".

[hkphooey]

hmmm....i'm not sure i totally agree with ElPietro in this case. after your workout it's all about carbs. there's plenty of research that shows that a sucrose/fructose mixture is what is assimilated easiest and best (fructose is for the liver). lately they've also shown that small amounts of protein in addition to these carbs will stimulate a little more insulin production and keep the delivery system working. my own personal recommendation is get a carbofuel/optifuel/whatever type product to drink right afterwards. then, make sure you get plenty of COMPLEX carbs within an hour or so after working out. if you want to take your protein then, fine, but you could wait a little longer if you wanted. your body is not going to be looking to "build" right after you exercise, it's going to be trying to take care of energy needs and the replenishing of glycogen. giving it lots of protein and no carbs right afterwards might encourage it to burn protein in its attempt to recover.

side note: while it's true that there are higher levels of growth hormone in your system during and immediately after your workout, growth hormone will NOT lead to muscle mass unless insulin is present.

two decent references are:
Optimum Sports Nutrition by Colgan
Optimal Muscle Recovery by Burke

[ElPietro]

HKPhooey you are only partly correct. It's not all about carbs. If you are bulking then yes carbs post-workout as I stated in my post. If you are bulking then you want to cause an insulin spike using high glycemic index carbs to restore muscle glycogen. If you are cutting, however, you would want to somewhat suppress insulin levels as this will inhibit your body from using up fat as fuel. If you consume carbs post-workout your body will consume those carbs quite quickly sparing the mainly fat and some protein it would use. That is why protein is better post workout as it will help spare protein consumption which will limit muscle recovery, and will also halt fat burning to a good degree.

Your body will slowly replenish glycogen as carbs are moderately introduced into your body, however, low GI carbs would limit the insulin produced which would still allow you to get some fat burning benefits.

So basically what you consume post-workout is related to what your goals are...carbs if you are bulking or somewhat maintaining...protein if you are cutting. I think we are agreeing on part while you hadn't addressed the second perspective...or post more info to refute what I wrote...i don't mind being proved wrong as it helps me learn in the end...

[Wong Ying Home]

What ever your goal, you have 90 mins with which to maximise digestion and absorption of carb or protein. Ideally no late than 60 mins of finishing workout.

Dont forget proteins have to be synthesised and bonded via the liver before the body can use them.
In addition if you are lacking any of the essential amino acids in you intake, teh nody cannot then turn the individual amoni acids into branch chain amino acids which is what the body uses so make sure you cover all the amino acids properly.

Personally I have found the Twin Labs Liquid amino fuel drink to be v effective when trainging hard. Gets me to only 10% body fat, lean and cut.

Hope that helps

PS the eating 90 mins advice was given to me by UK
natural body building champion who was cut. worked for him and me. Allthough I don't do body building

[hkphooey]

Hey ElPietro

thanks for your post. i confess that i have always approached it from an athletic performance stance (there was never a "bulking up" vs. "cutting" definition as to me this implies more of an aesthetic issue and not a peformance issue). thanks for the "second perspective". i'm still thinking about it. i'll let you know if i come up with anything. =)

i really appreciate your open attitude. i, like you, am more concerned with the truth than i am with defending my own personal opinion.

peace

[ijedi]

Hello,

Interesting posts. I really like everyone’s attitude. ElPietro actually is posting the most accurate info however please allow me to address a few things. If you do not know I am a certified trainer and you can see my other qualifications on other posts.

>If you are cutting, however, you would want to somewhat suppress insulin levels as this will inhibit your body from using up fat as fuel.

On what study (or studies) are you basing this information? Why would you not want to utilize fat as fuel? You are forgetting that you body needs insulin to utilize protein digestion and assimilation. It also depends on what type of protein is consumed. However an earlier post really nailed it:

“So basically what you consume post-workout is related to what your goals are...”

I could not post what you should eat unless you told me a myriad of facts about your life: age, years of exercise experience, your sleep patterns, your exercise habits, your exercise goals…among other things.

>Personally I have found the Twin Labs Liquid amino fuel drink to be v effective when trainging hard. Gets me to only 10% body fat, lean and cut.

>body building champion who was cut…

How do you define training hard. This could mean so many things. I could have you doing ****lek sprints, or power cleans, or pull-up pyramids, or… and in all these cases you would be training hard.

I would like to know where everyone got the idea that body builders were healthy? Most of them are terribly unhealthy by eastern standards.

>I confess that i have always approached it from an athletic performance stance (there was never a "bulking up" vs. "cutting" definition as to me this implies more of an aesthetic issue and not a peformance issue).

Actually, if you are interested in athletic performance your data is way off. A balanced diet (which means different things for different people) that is rich in protein, non-starchy vegetables, and good fats (EFA’s, etc.) is the diet of an athlete. Also, the focus should be on the needs of the particular training methodology. Boxers will require a different diet than football players (and even different positions should require different diets). Not to mention the individual involved.

BTW, a carb drink after working out can help if you just ran a marathon but I would say most people don’t work out of sufficient duration to require replenishing their glycogen stores immediately after exercise via a carbohydrate drink.

For general purposes of weight training and cardio…the best thing still remains a whey protein shake with milk and cold pressed flaxseed oil. The amount of protein, milk, and oil will all vary according to the individual. There is no easy formula, so please don’t post “well, this worked for me.”

Thanks.

[Leonidas]

Uh......i agree with GDA. Eat when your hungry. As simple as that. Probably shouldn't eat before a workout though since it could damage your stomach.

.

[ijedi]

Hello,

I admire your simplicity Leonidas, however pragmatically speaking if you wait until your hungry then your body is already in a state of need. Unless your just talking about the average person who doesn’t train to fight; then this is a different story.

Training for martial arts (or a sport activity more specifically) is a different lifestyle than the average American who adds to the 800 trillion served.

Likewise if you wait until your thirsty to drink water then you are already in a state of dehydration.

Again we see ourselves misled by the misunderstanding of eastern sayings. “When tired; sleep. When hungry; eat.” I am not going to go into the philosophical implications of this saying other than to say it is not about waiting until you are hungry to eat.

Again, one cannot program for the mass populace however if a generalization must be made it is best to eat many small meals throughout the day. Do not wait until you get hungry.

Thanks.

[Leonidas]

Everyone knows you should drink water before, during, and after a workout, but why force yourself to eat. have a protein shake or something.

[ijedi]

"Everyone knows you should drink water before, during, and after a workout, but why force yourself to eat. have a protein shake or something."

Hello,

I would not presume to say that everyone knows something. Also, just because someone knows it doesn't mean they do it. How many people know they should warm-up before a session of exercise? OK, now go to the gym and see how many people actually do it! Speaking from experience I would say I only see 10 to 20% of the muslce heads get on a treadmill or do any calisthenics before lifting. This includes performing a light lift prior to going heavy!!! And then they wonder why in 6 months to a year they are having shoulder pain and other injuries.

Since when is having a protein shake different than eating? I am not saying force yourself to eat. Much depends on your metabolism. But like I stated in an earlier post, you program your body. This includes your metabolism.

Unless you had a mother and father that was really hip on nutrition you probably ate like crap for at least the first 10 years of your life. McDonald’s and other processed food is poison in your body. Consuming this food is as bad as smoking to an athlete.

So much depends on re-programming your body for a fast metabolism (no this is not entirely genetic; much of your metabolism depends on your eating habits).

Eating many times (3 meals and 2-3 snacks) is the most efficient for most people. Again, I hate to make generalizations because what is the case for one person may not be the case for someone else. PLEASE DON’T THINK THIS MEANS IT IS NOT SCIENCE!!!

This simply means that a diet for someone that is 25% body fat and exercises 5 hours a week is not going to be the same diet for someone who is 5% body fat and exercises 25 hours a week. Not to mention all the other data that should go into programming for the individual.

Thanks.

[ElPietro]

Originally posted by ijedi
>If you are cutting, however, you would want to somewhat suppress insulin levels as this will inhibit your body from using up fat as fuel.

On what study (or studies) are you basing this information? Why would you not want to utilize fat as fuel? You are forgetting that you body needs insulin to utilize protein digestion and assimilation. It also depends on what type of protein is consumed. However an earlier post really nailed it:


I think you got what I said mixed up. You DO want to use fat as a source of fuel when cutting. But if you create an insulin spike after a workout you will be providing your body with all sorts of fuel that it can use instead of fat. And excess glucose will be stored as further fat.

The functions of insulin are:

To enable glucose to be transported across cell membranes
To convert glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver and muscles
To help excess glucose be converted into fat
To prevent protein breakdown for energy

Basically, carbs are a preferred source of fuel for your body, fat being second, and protein a distant third. Glycogen stores will be rebuilt over 24-48 hours without spiking insulin or consuming a high amount of high glycemic index carbs anyway. But if your bodies glycogen stores are depleted then it will move on to fat as it's next source of fuel. Fat isn't as good a source of fuel which is why it's always recommended to weight train first and then do your cardio as the weight training will use your muscle glycogen as a fuel source allowing you to lift to your fullest extent and then by the time you are finished your glycogen levels should be low thus enabling your body to consume mainly fat when you are doing cardio. This method will also facilitate some catabolism (muscle consumption) and therefore is not what would be recommended if you are on a bulking/mass building regime. But if you are on a cutting diet you must accept the fact that not all the weight you lose will be from fat. The slower you do things the more muscle you can spare but it's next to impossible to not lose a bit of muscle. Just as bulking will add some fat.

Let me know if we are on the same page or not, we can further discuss if not...insulin response and glycemic indexes can give ppl a headache and is often quite confusing. I know I always have to rethink all that I've learned in the past when making these posts. :)

[ijedi]

Hello ElPietro,

It would appear that we are on the same page of music. I would like to clarify the following statement…

>carbs are a preferred source of fuel for your body

I would say this greatly depends on your activity and what you are training for. For instance, all of the studies over the last 7 years have been increasingly demonstrating that the old running diet of high carbs and low fat decreasing cardiac output and severely reduces MaxVO2 (generally considered to be the efficiency of your hearts utilization of oxygen).

What many studies are showing is that more of a balanced diet (balancing proteins, carbs, and fats) allows for better athletic performance. Especially where adding essential fatty acids are concerned. Some of these studies have had the athletes eating as much 45% fat in their diet. And these athletes had the best improvement and the highest performance! Of course don’t think these guys were eating big mac’s and whoppers. Most of their fat came from nuts and seeds, nutbutter’s (peanut butter and almond butter), avocadoes, etc.

While I am not saying that you advocated a low fat diet, I think people could misunderstand and think you were saying to eat mostly carbs.

Unless, that's what you WERE saying. Let me know.

Great post. Especially regarding doing anaerobic (lifting) before aerobic (cardio)!

Thanks.

[ElPietro]

Heh, actually no I'm not advocating a high carb diet. I do take in a lot of essential fatty acids such as omega 3/6/9. Generally this is in the form of flax seed oil. Fat doesn't make you fat. I think people are afraid of fat intake. As long as you are eating within an ideal caloric level and the fat is a "good" fat, not saturated or poly, etc...carbs I am sayin are very important post workout for those trying to gain mass or prevent muscle tissue catabolism. Fat is a bad idea to consume post workout with your carbs as it will go straight to fat storage cells which I think I may have explained in my post above...if not and clarification is required lemme know.

I personally am tweaking my diet and will increase fat intake and decrease carbs.

[hkphooey]

ijedi

thanks for your posts. the question i was answering, however, was what to eat right after a workout. not "what is a good diet for an athlete?". didn't think i needed to bother to go in to things such essential fats. besides, the only issue i was addressing was the issue of slugging down tons of protein right after a workout.

one thing you touched on that i wish you would have expanded on was "body building". it's clear that body building, in many ways, has tainted what most people know as "athletic training." i am always amazed at the lack of functional strength and body integration that one finds in exercise prescriptions today (via "fitness" magazines).

i appreciate you pointing out the innumerable variables present in what we are talking about here...from bio-individuality to training goals.