Most athletes understand the importance of eating a high protein, high carbohydrate meal before an intense workout. But few athletes understand the importance of the post work out meal. Pre-workout meals are great for insuring adequate glycogen supplies during workouts while a great post workout meal provides hydration, nutrients, proteins, and amino acids that aid in muscle recovery.
It's always a good idea to measure your body weight before and after each workout. If you've done a very intense workout your weight should be several ounces less than when you started due to the shedding of water weight through sweat. Every ounce of body weight you lose during weight training should be replaced by two ounces of water. Adequate hydration during and after weight training ensures maximum performance and recovery.
In addition to restoring hydration levels, here are 3 tips for post workout eating that will help you maximize your muscle gains:
1. Juice .. Generally speaking, most simple sugars should be avoided, however, the sugars found in juice can help restore your glycogen levels. For optimum performance and muscle gains, take 10-12 ounces of orange or vegetable juice within 15 minutes of working out.
2. Carbohydrates .. Research recently conducted by UCLA found that 150 grams of carbohydrates taken no later than 2 hours after intense physical exercise actually builds glycogen stores adequate enough for continued, intense workouts. Depriving your body of these carbs for longer than 2 hours after a workout actually reduced glycogen levels in study participant by as much as 50%.
The best source for carbohydrates are potatoes which should be prepared with a minimal amount of high fat cooking oil and served with minimal toppings. The average large potato contains approximately 60 grams of carbohydrates meaning you generally need to eat 2-3 potatoes for your post workout meal. Bread is also a great source of carbohydrates but you should avoid eating white bread and try to stick with wheat bread as much as possible.
3. Protein .. There has also been research that shows protein coupled with carbohydrates and consumed no later than 2 hours after a workout also results in dramatically increased glycogen levels. According to researchers, you should plan to take 4 grams of carbohydrates for every 1 gram of protein. So if you plan on eating 3 potatoes after your workout you will correspondingly need to consume 45 grams of protein. Any meat is essentially a good source of protein but whey protein supplements make a nice substitute.
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