Post Workout: What To Eat | Nutrition

You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m going to follow up from part one of my video on post-workout nutrition before I did pre-workout nutrition. Now we’re going to do post-workout nutrition. A reminder, the question was asked in the group that said, Sam, what should I eat in regards to carbohydrates, fats and proteins? Is there a difference between what activity I’m doing that day? Is there a certain amount that I need to be getting in? What’s the deal with workout nutrition pre and post. We already covered pre-workout just to recap of that, that is you’re gonna want to primarily stick to carbohydrates and protein pre.

Now let’s talk about the post-workout. So before I get into the post-workout, a reminder nutrition is going to be individualized to everybody. So take what I’m saying in today’s video with a grain of salt. And then the really best thing to do is consult your fitness professional on what specifically works best for you, given how your body works. Now, if you don’t have a perfect fitness professional, you can listen to me and follow this advice. It should do you solid okay. 

So post-workout what to eat? We’re going to want to stick to carbohydrates and protein again, similar to we did pre-workout and then some fats too. We want to take a nice balanced approach after we work out, before I talk about how much and, ratios and things like that, I do want to let you guys know you do not need to rush 45 minutes after your workout to eat. There was this myth long ago, promoted really by supplement companies that said, you need to eat 45 minutes after you work out. The reason they said that, is they’re trying to ritualize you taking their protein powder after you work out, you ritualize it. You’re going to do it more and you’re going to buy more protein from them. So that was a myth that was really popular. And I know the early or late 1990s, and then early two thousands, that’s not true. You don’t need to follow that advice.

Okay. So now that we’ve got that out of the way, what to eat? So start out with a good source of carbohydrates. Reason being is you’re going to want to replenish all that glucose and glycogen that you ate during your training session, no matter what type of training session you did. So if you just did a long run, or if you just did some short strength training or a short HIIT session, regardless, you just burned through a lot of glycogen and glucose, you’re going to want to replenish that.

So a nice steady source of carbohydrates. Again, I usually recommend fruits and white rice or sweet potato. Keep it nice and simple there, we don’t need to be eating candy bars and all those things to get it in quicker after, it really doesn’t make a difference.

After that, we’re going to look for a good source of protein. So lean protein sources, we’re looking at, you know – chicken, turkey, and then lean styles of beef. Okay. Those are gonna be your best kind of protein sources or fish. If you’re in the low country, we got excellent seafood. So you can throw some of that in post-workout.

And we’re going to want a nice balanced fat, typically I’ll recommend something after workout, like an avocado. Just start to replenish that… Now with the fat source, I wouldn’t go crazy with the fat source right after you workout. What you could do is you can load up more on the fats at nighttime, protein and fat at night time and scale back on the carbohydrates… 

Take them out completely before moving into your next kind of training session. One other thing to note, since we know now we want to get protein, carbs and fats after workout. The only time that you would really need to eat quickly after you train is if you’re going to have another training session that day, you’re going to want to make sure that you replenish everything quickly. I know before I said it doesn’t matter if you eat 45 minutes before it doesn’t, but if you have another training session coming up in two or three hours, you’re going to want to make sure that you eat quickly enough to replenish that.

Also one thing that’s often neglected after exercise – hydration, make sure you’re getting in lots of water. I would say a minimum for the majority of people should be 40 ounces of water after they’re done training. 

Okay. You kind of want to get that in. And just like I kind of said in the pre-workout video, if you’re not a carbohydrate fan, what do you do? If you’re on a low carb keto style diet, make sure that you’re getting in adequate salt, magnesium, and all those electrolytes, that way you can be balanced and ready to go for your next training.

So quick recap after training is not really going to matter, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re getting into your carbohydrates, your good sources of protein directly before that next training, at least two hours before that next training as long as you get that and you’ll be good to go and make sure you’re hydrating.

And that is all I have for you guys today. So if you have any other questions for me, drop in the comments, I’d love to answer them. We can get more specific on that. And if you need to, if you have any specific questions on that, you can reach out to me directly via direct messenger. That’s all I have for you guys today. If you’d like this video, give me a thumbs up. If you love it, give me a heart and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam