Fitness By Day

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You've probably heard before that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but do you know which is second? The answer is your post workout meal. When you exercise you aren't actually building your body up, you are breaking your body down. It’s exactly that stress on the body that triggers the growth, adaptation, and development you are working so hard for. What you eat immediately following exercise has quite an impact on those goals.

During exercise your body breaks down glycogen (stored carbohydrate) as well as fats and protein. While you are more than content to say "so long" to the burnt fats, you do need to replenish the glycogen and repair the muscular damage to get the most out of your next workout. One of the best ways to do that is to consume a meal with both protein and carbohydrate within one hour of completing your workout. That window is so important because during that period your body is at a heightened state of insulin sensitivity and can best utilize those nutrients for repair and replenishment.

Exercise physiologists have determined that the optimal formula for post exercise meal consumption is a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein. Try consuming one gram of protein for every 10 pounds of body weight within an hour of exercise and 4 times that much carbohydrate.

Doing so will help ensure that you gain the greatest results possible for all of your hard work.

-Brian Day, BS, CSCS