Eating a pre-workout meal will energize and help you train harder and harder, while eating a post-workout meal will help muscle recovery. It is not always possible to have a full meal 1,5 hours before sports or 45-60 after their completion. In such cases, take a 150-200 calorie light snack 30-45 minutes before starting. You don’t need to have a special snack if you ate about 1,5-2 hours ago. Excess snacks provoke overeating and weight gain. Do not think that everything will burn out in training. Most people burn fewer calories than they think. On average, calorie consumption per workout is 300-400 kcal, no matter what the devices show. Take a snack if you really need it.
For different types of sports activities, there are different requirements for the distribution of meals before training. A snack before yoga will be superfluous, and before strength training will be helpful.
Pre-workout snack rules
Protein and carbohydrates are key to a pre-workout snack. Carbohydrates prevent the premature depletion of muscle glycogen, which will allow you to work out intensively. Protein prevents muscle breakdown. And the food intake itself reduces the level of cortisol – a stress hormone that begins to be actively produced after hungry sports activities (calorizer). Excess cortisol is harmful for weight loss – it retains water in the body, destroys muscle tissue, and makes it difficult to control hunger.
A snack should consist of a serving of digestible protein foods and a small serving of fast-digesting carbohydrates. Egg whites, low-fat cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, white lean fish, and whey protein will digest faster than steak, poultry, whole eggs, or high-fat cottage cheese.
Fats slow down digestion. You run the risk of experiencing heartburn, bloating, nausea, or pain when exercising. There should be no fat in a snack.
For fast-digesting carbohydrates, choose fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads, or a small slice of bran bread. There should be few carbohydrates. Choose less carbohydrate foods. An apple is better than a banana. Carrots are better than potatoes. Whole grain crisps are better than cookies.
An excess of carbohydrates creates a high glycemic load on the body. With poor sensitivity to carbohydrates and insulin during training, you run the risk of feeling weak, apathy, lethargy. By the way, obese and sedentary people have low insulin sensitivity.
Post-Workout Snack Rules
The post-workout meal should take place no later than 4-5 hours after the previous meal. This figure came from researchers Alan Aragon and Brad Schofield, who studied the effect of nutrition around exercise on recovery.
Suppose you ate at 15:30 pm, started exercising at 17:00 pm, and worked out for 60 minutes. Let’s add some time for changing – you left the hall at 18:30. You need to eat within 60-120 minutes (calorizator). Many come home and eat a scheduled dinner. If you need to cook dinner for a long time or you are not going home, you need to have a snack.
The main component of a snack is protein, since it is necessary to saturate the muscles with amino acids. Carbohydrates are an additional component. Their presence in a post-workout snack is not so important. Much more important is their number per day, that is, the ratio of BJU. For carbohydrates, choose fruits, berries, vegetables and bread, but make sure that the carbohydrate serving does not exceed the daily requirement.
Some fat may be present in the post-workout meal. They slow down digestion, which means you will feel fuller longer. Quite good sources are a small handful of nuts, fats from eggs, fermented milk products, provided that they fit into the BZHU.
Sports activities can be included in the regime so that you do not have to rack your brains over snacks. Sometimes it is better to have a snack than to feel intense hunger and discomfort. The main thing is that snacks fit into your daily calorie intake, BJU and do not create a burden for digestion.