There is a lot of talk about the importance of pre-workout and post workout meals. There are many who think that eating more before a workout is important or eating more after workout will help you even more and vice versa. Well, that is a very farfetched statement. There is a lot more science to the use of pre workout and post workout and it differs from person to person. That said, pre and post workout are both important to sustain your workout.
Why Pre- and Post-Workout Meals Are Both Important?
With our different workout routines and different body requirements, our pre workout meals and post workout meals are very different.
Given that information, the right use of pre and post workout meals is very important for muscle building, strength and weight loss.
Acting as Body Fuel
Pre workout meals are energy boosters that provide the required energy to sustain your intense workout while the post workout is for the recovery of your damaged muscle tissues and strength after a workout.
Pre-Workout Meals
Before a workout, if you are not in the habit of using a proper pre-workout meal, then you need to overdo things from the beginning. Believe it or not a pre-workout meal is very necessary for healthy workout session.
When you are exercising, your muscles use the glycogen inside it to turn it into glucose so that your muscle can contract and expand. This is where you need to make sure that your pre workout will ensure adequate stores of glycogen. That means your pre-workout meals need to be fast digesting carbs and fats.
The Importance of Protein Intake in Pre Workout Meals
During a workout session it is important that you avoid muscle catabolism or protein breakdown in your muscle. That simply means you need your muscles to store some amount of protein so that you can have fruitful results after exercise.
So, the intake of protein in pre workout is crucially important. Many people use protein shakes in low quantity before a workout session to ensure enough protein in the muscles. With protein shakes you get fast digesting high quality proteins.
That eventually brings us to the conclusion that your pre-workout meal should contain carbs and proteins to ensure a healthy and fruitful workout session.
When to Eat a Pre-Workout Meal?
Timing is always of essence when it comes to eating pre-workout meal. You need to ensure that you do not go out to exercise just after your meal. Working out in a filled stomach is a no go. Take the meal at least 30 minutes before the workout and eat things that are fast digesting. Also make sure to not let the gap increase further than 50 minutes as the energy received from the meal will start to deplete.
Post Workout Meals
No one would argue about post workout meals and how important they are for muscle and strength recovery. After a good workout session your muscles are quite exhausted as you have damaged your muscle fibre tissues. In order to help them recover it is of crucial importance that you take the right and good amount of diet after workout.
This is where you can make use of protein shakes such as whey protein. Although it is not necessary for your muscle growth as you can also recover your strength and muscled through eating high quality protein-based diet such as fish, meat, eggs and milk. But the use of protein shake is very beneficial as maintaining a consistent diet of above mentioned meals is not easy, you will probably falter in between days, so you can use the help of supplements to cover the protein and nutrients required by your body.
What to Eat in Post-Workout?
During a workout session you put extraordinary stress on the muscles, your glycogen levels are completely depleted, and muscle tissues damaged. This is where the proteins and carbs from your post workout meal come in as the carbs cover the glycogen levels and proteins fill up the damaged muscles and increase muscle mass.
After a workout, it is better to eat after 20 minutes once your body has calmed down a bit and body temperature has steadied. It is important to take a very high and protein rich diet after your workout. But that does not mean you should leave out the carbs and fats. For your body to recover its strength it needs carbs, fibers and fats along with the protein to recover. Many athletes take protein shakes after their workout to provide instant nutrition to the body as protein shakes digest faster than other protein meals. Given that, you should also include fish, meat, peanut butter and eggs in large quantities in your post workout diet.
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