Recommended Pre and Post-Workout Diet

Photo Credit: Noodles and Beef (flickr.com)

The food you take before and after workout sessions can have a great effect on whether you get the desired results of your efforts or not.

To begin with, you need enough energy to spend quality time on the gym. Eating the right food will help you achieve that. Your body’s recovery will also be significantly better with good post-workout food. Accordingly, healthy meals are important as you go through the day. All the work you do in the gym will not mean anything if you mostly consume junk foods and soda.  

Pre-Workout

First and foremost, you need to understand that the amount of food you take is actually determined by your body size and your personal training goals.

If you are only doing short workouts to strengthen some muscles, it will mostly be enough for you to at least have 25g of carbs and 25g of protein. This will help you avoid muscle burnout while performing your exercises plus this will lead to greater muscle growth. On the other hand, you will likely need twice that amount if you are doing intense exercises such as deadlifts and squats.

Protein can be obtained from sources such as whey while carbohydrates can come from many different sources. However, do not consume fruits if you want to have the best outcome since they contain fructose – which can be good for the liver but not actually beneficial for increasing muscle energy.

Post-Workout

Again, it is not recommended to eat fructose-rich foods after a heavy workout. Muscle recovery is your real goal and you want to avoid having sugar on your liver. Also, your body’s protein and amino acids will be burned down and so sufficient protein intake is a must after your workout.

You can check out online sellers to find excellent sources of protein such as CytoSport Australia. This will help your muscles recover from the training and promote greater growth.

Staying away from foods that are rich in fat is also a wise idea before and after your trainings. The only exception to this rule is that you are allowed to have fat if you are doing endurance training and other lengthened exercises.

During the day, you can have fat from various sources such as fish oils, seeds, and nuts. You may also want to check out supplements (such as fish oil capsules) which are sold in different health stores online and offline.


Resource Link:
What to Eat Before and After a Workout (fitnessmagazine.com)
The Fit 5: Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition (mensfitess.com)