Importance of Post-Workout Nutrition

Before diving into how the right nutrition can help you post-workout, it is important to understand and learn how physical activity affects your body.

When you’re working out, your muscles use up their glycogen- the body’s fuel source primarily during high-intensity workouts. Your muscles consequently experience partial glycogen depletion. Then, the immune system comes in to clean up the mess.

After a workout, your body rebuilds glycogen stores and regenerates muscle proteins. Eating the right food post-workout can help speed up this process as well as stimulate new muscle growth. Knowing how to eat during this period will help you maximize your efforts in the gym and get the best results for your time.

So with this, it is clear that the post-workout period is not to be taken lightly. Remember, you spent a lot of time in the gym tearing down muscles for a good purpose. You want it to be more adaptable to future demands.

So, to get the most of your time invested, you must provide the body with the necessary raw materials it needs, which are protein and carbohydrates.

WHAT TO EAT POST-WORKOUT

Those who workout regularly, regardless of their chosen mode of exercise, must take their post-exercise nutrition seriously to provide the muscle with the raw materials it needs. The primary goal of your post-workout meal is to provide your body with the nutrition it needs for optimal recovery and to maximize your workout’s benefits. Therefore, it is highly recommended to eat protein and carbs after your workout.

As all types of exercise use carbohydrates for energy, muscle carbohydrate depletion is unavoidable. Therefore a post-workout meal high in carbohydrates is required to refill muscle energy stores.

However, any random amount of carbohydrates will not do. You need to eat enough carbohydrates to stimulate a significant insulin release. This accelerates carbohydrate resynthesis and creates a positive protein balance, resulting in faster muscle tissue repair.

Since muscle protein is also degraded during exercise, the addition of a relatively large amount of protein to your post-workout meal is necessary to help rebuild the structural aspects of the muscle. After exercise, the body increases its rate of protein breakdown. However, the provision of protein and amino acids reverses this, increasing protein synthesis and decreasing protein breakdown.

While your post-workout meal should be rich in proteins and carbohydrates, this meal should be fat-free. The consumption of essential fats is one of the most overlooked areas of daily nutritional intake but during the post-workout period, eating fat can decrease the effectiveness of your post-workout beverage. Because fat slows stomach transit, eating fat after the workout may slow the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates and proteins.

TIMING OF THE MEAL IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT

Another important thing to consider is the timing of post-workout meals. You must eat your post-workout meal immediately after exercising. As stated above, after exercise, the muscles are fatigued and require a lot of protein and carbohydrates.

This is referred to as the "window of opportunity". Throughout the recovery period, this window gradually decreases, and failing to eat immediately after exercise reduces your chances of promoting full recovery. If you wait too long, glycogen replenishment and protein repair get hampered.

NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS

In the case of post-workout nutrition, I believe that liquid supplemental nutrition is far superior to whole food for the following reasons.

1. Liquid supplements like Whey Protein are palatable, easy to consume, and can be quite nutrient-dense, providing all the nutrition you need at this time. Since these formulations are structurally simple the gastrointestinal tract can easily process them.
2. They have a fast-absorption profile. A whey protein shake may be fully absorbed within 30 to 60 minutes, providing much-needed muscle nourishment by this time. However, a slower digesting solid food meal may take 2 to 3 hours to fully reach the muscle.
3. During the post-workout period, specific nutrients maximize your recovery. These contains a lot of water, high-glycemic index carbs, and amino acids. It's also advised to avoid fat during this time. So the only way to ensure that these nutrients are present in the appropriate amount is to opt for whey protein powders.

In conclusion, when you decide to start exercising you also commit to give a specific amount of time per week in order to improve your physical health. However, if you haven't taken the time to consider post-exercise nutrition, you're missing out on a lot of benefit that comes with exercising.