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Post Workout Nutrition - Eating The Right Foods
After Exercise
 The
instant that you cross the finish line ending one athletic event,
you begin your preparation for the next. From that moment forward,
if you are not planning ahead by consuming the right foods, you
may miss out on the prize.
Carbohydrates After Exercise
If your next exercise session is less than 24 hours from your last
one, you need to put a bit more thought into what you eat and when
you eat it in order that you fill your energy stores adequately.
To optimize energy refueling, together the American College of Sports
Medicine (ACSM), the American Dietetic Association (ADA), and the
Dietitians of Canada recommend the consumption of carbohydrate beginning
immediately after exercise. If you consume 1.5 grams (g) carbohydrate
per kilogram (kg) every 2 hours, refueling is more successful than
when food is withheld for 2 hours. It seems that the best strategy
for refueling is consuming 0.4 g carbohydrate/kg every 15 minutes
for 4 hours (approximately 2,000 calories) after exhaustive exercise.
If your exercise sessions are more than 24 hours apart, eating
ample carbohydrates - about 1 to 1½ pounds per day - as part
of your training diet will replenish your glucose stores adequately
(read my other article about how carbs
& protein boost performance). How much carbohydrate you
eat in the 24 to 48 hours after an event is more important than
when you eat it.
All of these calculations can seem daunting. Fortunately, nutrition
labels list carbohydrate content in grams and the information can
be taken directly from food packaging. Divide your weight in pounds
by 2.2 to convert weight to kg and multiply that number by the carbohydrate
coefficient. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, your calculation
should look like this:
140 ÷ 2.2 = 63 kg
63 X 1.5g = 95g of carbohydrate
Consuming enough carbohydrates soon after exercise ends reduces
the amount of muscle that is broken down and encourages muscle growth,
helps to maintain body weight for those who struggle maintaining
adequate weight with intense training, and increases time to exhaustion
(TTE) during a subsequent bout of endurance exercise.
Protein After Exercise
Immediately after exercise, muscle cells are extremely sensitive
to insulin, a hormone that plays a key role in both the transport
of sugar (glucose) into the cell and in muscle synthesis. If dietary
protein is made available during this time, insulin will quickly
help to synthesize muscle tissue and very little will be converted
and stored as fat. Ivy and Portman have reported that when carbohydrate
plus protein is given immediately after exercise, muscle protein
synthesis can be increased to as much as 300%, but when delayed
by three hours, the elevation in synthesis was only 12%. Roughly
two hours after exercise, the body's cells start to become insulin
resistant and continue to be for sixteen hours or longer.
Conclusion
Consuming both carbohydrates and protein after an endurance exercise
session can improve your performance next time. While it is true
that you need to eat more carbohydrate, protein, and calories to
refuel adequately after exercise, if you consume too much, the excess
will be converted to fat and stored, and nobody wants that.
By Peggy
Kraus
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