Ep. #190: What Should You Eat After Working Out?

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Mike and welcome to another installment in my in five minutes or less series, where I answer one common question quickly and simply, because while long form content is great, sometimes it is also nice when someone just gets right to the point and tells you what to do and how to do it in five minutes or less.

And that’s what I do in these episodes. And this time around, I’m going to be answering a question that I get fairly frequently. And that is, should I eat after my workouts, both weight training workouts and cardio workouts? And if so, what should I eat? How much and why? So the first thing you need to know about post workout nutrition.

And Is it’s relative importance and the relative importance is low. It is not a vitally important aspect of dieting. It is not a make break aspect of dieting [00:01:00] like energy balance or macronutrient balance, particularly protein intake. Or so if you look at the hierarchy in terms of a pyramid, and this is just for nutrition at the top, you have energy balance.

And if you want to know why head over to muscle for life, search for energy balance and read the article I wrote on it. And then beneath that you have macronutrient balance. So how your calories break down into protein, carbs, and fats. And then beneath that you have your food choices. So where are you getting those calories and macros from?

And also of course with an eye to. Nutrition or the quote unquote healthiness of the foods that you’re eating. And then at the bottom of the pyramid, you have little tweaks and optimizations that you can make to improve your results to slightly improve your results over the longer term. And that’s where pre and post workout nutrition fall in the overall scheme of things.

Now, the reason why you should eat food after you exercise, whether it’s resistance training or cardiovascular exercise is not so [00:02:00] much because there’s an anabolic window. And that if you eat food in that period, your body’s going to be hyper responsive to it. Or on the flip side, if you don’t eat food in that period, you’re going to miss out on a bunch of muscle growth.

That’s not the case. In exaggeration, the reality is research shows that protein synthesis rates decline during exercise, both resistance training and cardio exercise, cardiovascular exercise. And as our primary goal as far as muscle growth goes, is to keep protein synthesis rates above protein breakdown rates for as many minutes and hours of the day as possible.

When we have a situation where protein synthesis rates are suppressed, which we have after we work out. So you go through a workout, you come out the other end of it and your protein synthesis rates are suppressed acutely. When we have that kind of situation, we want to do something to elevate protein synthesis rates as quickly as possible.

And how you do that? You eat protein, of course, and that’s why you hear a [00:03:00] lot about post workout protein being more important than post workout carbohydrates or fats. And just as another little point of note regarding post workout protein intake is that studies do show that when you eat protein after a workout, protein synthesis rates rise higher than they would normally.

So when you eat protein At any time, protein synthesis rates do rise, but when you eat protein after a workout, they rise even higher than they normally would. And that’s one of the reasons why people say there is this thing called the anabolic window. And again, I guess that’s true, but of course these effects aren’t major.

It’s not to the point where it’s if you don’t have your protein within an hour or two of working out, you’re going to miss out on all this muscle gain. However, it is true though. that having protein within an hour or two of finishing a workout from a muscle building perspective is better than not.

And it may slightly influence your muscle building [00:04:00] results over the longterm. Okay. So how about carbs? How important is it to eat carbs after you work out? And the long story short here is from a muscle building perspective, it’s not very important. Some people say that you should be eating a bunch of carbs after you work out because then it’s going to spike insulin levels.

And they’ll say that insulin is an anabolic hormone. Therefore, the more insulin in your body, especially in this anabolic window, this post workout anabolic window. The more insulin is in your body during that period, the better. However insulin is not an anabolic hormone. It is an anti catabolic hormone.

Those are different things. And while it is true that you do need your insulin levels to be elevated to a. Certain degree for your body’s muscle building machinery to work at least to work as efficiently as possible. You can achieve that level of insulin in your blood with protein alone. Adding a bunch of carbs does raise insulin levels further, but that does not influence the muscle building.

Muscle building that [00:05:00] occurs as a result of eating that meal. And what about glycogen? You might be wondering, and if you’re not sure what glycogen is, it is simply a form of carbohydrate that is stored primarily in your muscles and liver. And while it’s true that eating a bunch of carbs after you work out will help your body replenish its glycogen stores, this only really matters from a performance perspective.

If you’re going to be exercising again in the same day if not, if you’re, let’s say you’re training once a day. And as long as you’re eating enough carbs on the whole, you don’t have to worry about this. So let’s say again, you train once a day, whether you eat a bunch of carbs after you work out, or you eat a bunch of carbs throughout the day from a muscle glycogen perspective, you’re not going to notice any difference in the gym.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word [00:06:00] of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Alright, so that leaves us with dietary fat. Should you be eating dietary fat after you work out?

And the short answer here is sure if you want to. It’s not going to help you. It’s not going to harm you. It it will slow down the digestion and absorption of the food that you eat, but that is not going to get in the way of anything. For example, studies show that adding dietary fat to a meal does not slow down glycogen replenishment.

And there’s a one study that suggested that whole fat milk may be more anabolic than nonfat milk. So all this means is don’t worry about it. If you want to have some fat. In your post workout [00:07:00] meal, do it if you don’t. All right. So how about amounts? How much protein should you be eating after you work out?

And if you’re going to eat carbs, how much should you be eating? What I do is, and what I recommend is 20 to 40 grams of a high quality protein after you work out. And we’ll get to timing in a second. Of course, I’ve mentioned a couple of times within one to two hours, but there’s a little bit more information that you should have on that.

But anyways, so 20 to 40 grams of a high quality protein. I personally go at the higher end of that because some research suggests that 40 grams of a high quality protein may be better for muscle building purposes after you work out than 20. Now in terms of carbs, it’s up to you, but if you are going to be eating a high carb diet, which you should be, if you want to be maximizing muscle and strength gains, and that would be the subject for another video.

Then you’ll probably find that you like eating a lot of carbs after you work out, you’ll get a nice rush, a nice pump. It feels good. So if that’s the case, and what I do personally is I eat about [00:08:00] one gram of carbohydrate. What I recommend is about one gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight in your post workout meal.

You can go a little bit below that. So I could say maybe like 0. 8 to one gram per kilogram. So for me, I eat about 80 to 90 grams of carbs in my post workout meal is my. Normal with the 40 grams of protein and fats again is totally up to you. It really depends what I’m eating. If I’m having, if I’m getting my protein from powder, which is what I normally do in my post workout meals, that’s my whey protein.

It’s very low in fat. And in terms of carbs, it’s usually fruit. And sometimes it’ll be like an English muffin and sometimes put a little butter on it. So yeah. Regardless, what we’re looking at is a low fat meal, no more than I would say, 15 grams of fat in that meal. Again, that’s just me. The fat is totally up to you.

Now, in terms of timing, we can just keep it simple and say, have your post workout meal within one to two hours of working out. That’s just a good rule of thumb. However, I would say an exception that you should be aware of is if you have. I’ve eaten a sizable meal. So if we’re [00:09:00] talking, 20 to 40 grams of protein with a fair amount of carbohydrate and some fat within probably three to four hours of your workout, when you eat your post workout meal is less important because your body’s probably still going to be processing the food that you ate and therefore your protein synthesis rates are already going to be, you’re going to be going into that workout with higher than normal protein synthesis rates anyway.

So it’s not that. You shouldn’t have a post workout meal if you’ve eaten within the last, let’s say, three to four hours of training, but it is less important. It is more important or let’s say it achieves its maximum importance, which again, isn’t all that high, but it achieves its maximum importance when you haven’t eaten in, let’s say, let’s say it’s been five or six hours since you’ve eaten before you workout than, eating a meal after you work out.

But that’s when it’s most important. All right. How about supplements? I know it’s not nutrition per se, but I do get asked a lot about it. So we might as [00:10:00] well tackle it real quick. So there are three supplements that I personally take after working out and that I recommend everyone take if you have the budget and inclination.

One is creatine because it helps you gain muscle and strength faster. Research suggests that taking it after a workout is best. Number two is whey protein because it is rich in essential amino acids, which are vital for building muscle and particularly rich in leucine, which is the essential amino acid that directly stimulates protein synthesis and whey is also rapidly digested and absorbed which is good from a post workout perspective.

And the third supplement I take with my post workout meal is fish oil because it’s a good source of omega 3 fatty acids, which are otherwise hard to get in your diet and which confer many health benefits and which if you are deficient in Can cause many problems in the body and research [00:11:00] also shows that when it’s combined with food and with protein in particular, it further elevates protein synthesis rates.

In a sense, it gives a little boost to your post workout meal. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

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