What Should We Eat Before And After Workout?

Eating before and after workout also has some benefits but with terms and conditions. Pre-workout and post-workout meals play a key role in the effectiveness of your training sessions. They help you perform your best and shape your result. The question arises “How can we achieve our weight loss goals after eating?” You can find the answer in this article. Let’s take a look into the purpose of meal timings and what to eat?

PRE-WORKOUT MEALS

Pre-workout meal means meal before workout. The purpose of this meal is simple: to fuel your activity and give your body what it needs to perform with energy. Your body requires to things to complete the terms and conditions of pre-workout meal.

1. Carbohydrates for energy: It means pre-workout meal gives you energy to exercise. Pre-workout meal gives you carbohydrates as your source of energy. Carbohydrates are an efficient source of energy that fuel muscle contractions. Once eaten, carbs are broken down into smaller sugars (glucose, fructose, and galactose) to be used as energy for immediate tasks. Any unused glucose will be converted into glycogen and stored in the muscles and liver for future use. Glycogen is the energy source most often used for short, intense bouts of exercise such as sprinting or weightlifting. Because glycogen is stored in muscles, it is immediately accessible. During bursts of activity, the stored glycogen will be converted back to glucose and burned for fuel. This is the typical energy source for the first few minutes of any sport.
2. Proteins to supply your muscles with the right amino acids: Amino acids, often referred to as the building blocks of proteins, are compounds that play many critical roles in your body. They are needed for vital processes like building of proteins and synthesis of hormones and neurotransmitters. When you eat protein, it’s broken down into amino acids, which are then used to help your body with various processes such as building muscles and regulating immune function. Protein also benefits by giving a better anabolic response, our muscle growth, improved muscle recovery, increased strength and lean body mass.

As I have said there are terms and conditions, so the terms of pre-workout meals that includes a balance of carbohydrates and proteins are:

1. Oat meal or other whole grain cereal with milk and fruits.
2. Apple with nut butter (Peanut, Almond).
3. High protein yogurt with fruits.
4. Banana
5. Smoothie with fruits and protein supplement.

And the conditions for pre-workout meal is avoid eating immediately before workout. It will cause digestive discomfort and it creaks competing demands on the body which cause you stomach is trying to digest food at the same time you push your muscles to perform. There should be a difference of 1 to 3 hrs between meal and workout, depending on how quickly your body digest the food. Since liquid can digest easily, you can take it closer to the workout timings.

POST-WORKOUT MEALS

Post-workout meal means meals after workout. The purpose of post-workout meal is to supply your body with everything it needs to repair, recover and adopt to the training stimulus that the workout provided. This meal helps to:

1. Minimize muscle damage: Post-workout meals helps to minimize muscle damage that means during workout if in case you have any kind of muscle damage such as strain, fatigue or anything else, it helps to cure it naturally.
2. Increases muscle protein synthesis: It Increases blood flow to skeletal muscle after exercise means that more nutrients are floating around more quickly. Providing an amino acid and glucose dense blood supply after exercise means that the rate of protein synthesis goes up.
3. Maintains muscle glycogen: Your body's glycogen stores are used as fuel during exercise, and consuming carbs after your workout helps replenish them. The rate at which your glycogen stores are used depends on the activity. For example, endurance sports cause your body to use more glycogen than resistance training.
4. Reduces body pain: It helps in reduction of body pain by providing all the nutrients to the body.

Most of our food bag shrinks because of workout, so appetite is suppressed. Hence, liquid nutrition are more appealing option than other preferences than having a real meal. Pairing with carbohydrates and proteins meals that fulfil all your cravings to eat. Just maximum 60 mins or minimum 30 mins after workout we should have meal. At this time the body is ready to receive vital nutrients and put them to work. If we did not take the meal on time, our body starts breaking down muscles to fuel itself and due to this you will lose muscle for building your body.

- Abhilasha  Jain

A HEALTHY OUTSIDE STARTS FROM THE INSIDE