Best Foods to Eat After a Workout

A great workout does not depend on the number of squats you did, or the amount of push-ups you did, even though that helps, but it goes beyond them. When it comes to keeping fit, there are certain elements that depend on the performance of your fitness goals. Aside from the rigorous workouts, you have to consider the type of food that goes into your body after a training, as this can either help you achieve your objective or hinder it. The key to getting and maintaining a knock out body is a combination of regular exercise and eating, more specifically, eating the right foods at the right time. Most people think that the best way to lose weight is to work out hard, then wait until mealtime to have a balanced diet. But, that’s usually not the case, feeding your body before and after every exercise is crucial for burning more calories, losing weight, building lean muscle, staying energized, and speeding up recovery. In order to get the most of your exercise routines, you have to know that nutrition is a huge factor and part of the progress scorecard.

Regardless of what type of exercise you do, here are a few choice foods for you to eat after a workout.

Ideally, you should provide your body with post-workout nutrition within 30 minutes of exercising. After workouts, your muscles crave carbohydrates and protein. Exercising creates small cuts in muscle fibres, the protein will aid it to recover faster by providing their required amino acids. Carbohydrates, on the other hand, helps your body increase torn muscles’ glycogen stores, providing them with more energy to heal and keep moving. Potato is an excellent source of carbohydrates, with no fat or cholesterol and only 2 grams of protein, potatoes are mainly used for calories and carbohydrates. One potato provides 110 calories along with significant amounts of carbohydrates to meet the macronutrient requirements. Potatoes are starchy vegetables that provide an abundance of carbohydrates for your muscles to use as fuel. But for the best recovery, your body needs a source of protein as well, like lean meats, nuts, eggs, fish, dairy and soy products. Protein is essential to building muscle after every exercise. Any complete protein source (providing all essential amino acids = complete) will facilitate muscle repair and growth. Egg proteins are among the fastest digesting and offer the highest bio-availability. Beef and chicken are both sources of quality protein. Beef is more protein and calorie dense and chicken tends to be leaner. Fish and shellfish are also good choices and add variety and beneficial fatty acids. Meat contains proteins and calories, and to build muscles you will need both calories and proteins to help you repair and increase your muscle size. Generally, a diet with a wide variety of quality protein sources provides a wider array of nutrients and prevents dullness in a structured diet. Combining these protein and carbohydrates foods equally in your post-workout meal is best to fuel your body.

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This article was first published on 8th December 2017

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