Best post workout foods?

Duck's hoop · 10-02-2015 6:58am

Mellor wrote: »

How may people have 90 min aerobic session followed by another in a few hours. You are straying into elite athletes here who output demands require more meals to refuel.

My guess would be in the thousands in this country alone. Dozens known to me personally. And only maybe 6 actual 'carded' athletes.

But again, why do cyclists, runners, rowers take fuel on during sessions. Never mind between? Shouldn't someone tell them there's no need?

Depending on the activity, and pace / effort 90 minutes could burn 14-1800 cals in 90 mins. That's significant and will require a refuel post haste.

10-02-2015 7:08am

Mellor wrote: »

How far are you running at night?
whats your 6:30am session like?

I'd imagine that neither of these are close to depleting.
So, as above, your intake over the whole day is the main concern, not the hours surrounding training specifically. You body will regular energy from food/glycogen/fat stores

10-20km

Then a crossfit session in the morning.

Going to move my runs to the non crossfit mornings I think.

Mellor · 10-02-2015 8:04am

Duck's hoop wrote: »

But again, why do cyclists, runners, rowers take fuel on during sessions. Never mind between? Shouldn't someone tell them there's no need?

Energy gels and similar, still need maybe an hour to digest. So unless the workouts are longer, they aren't going to have much of an impact muscle glycogen during it. A decent meal before hand, that your body has had a head start on digesting, goes towards refuel glycogen too.

But, I never said there's no need for them.
They've shown that the physiological benefits is two fold. Even though they take an hour to digest, they also give an instant boost to the brain. When receptors in the mouth detected the simple carbs, they send a signals saying nutrients are on the way, and this allows you to push harder in the short term.
Studies have show the effect to work even when athletes rinse their mouth with sugar solution and spit it out.

Depending on the activity, and pace / effort 90 minutes could burn 14-1800 cals in 90 mins. That's significant and will require a refuel post haste.

1800 cals is a massive load tbf. What sort of activity are you thinking of there? A half marathon?
Those kind of sessions twice a day is the type of stuff I was referring to as elite.

Obviously the energy burned during any session needs to be replaced. The point was that is doesn't have to come in a fixed 2 hour window after training. The whole day is providing your fuel.

This is a bit of a simple example, but say I start my day with glycogen reasonably full, have a decent meal at 10am, then go train from 11-1pm.
During training, i'm running on muscle glycogen (and fat stores). My meal that I had early is probably only finished digesting around 1pm anyway. And the energy from this will make its way towards refueling energy stores.

It will probably be time to eat again shortly after that anyway, but I don't need to straight away reload everything that I burned.

Duck's hoop · 10-02-2015 9:15am

Fair enough. I think we're basically saying the same thing. Most heads I know training pretty hard get some scran or a carb-protein shake in ASAP post session.

There's a whole lot of mad fcukers out there training 12-15 hours a week with full time jobs. Many doubles sessions obliged.

I need to get more carbs in.

Mellor · 10-02-2015 10:13am

Duck's hoop wrote: »

Fair enough. I think we're basically saying the same thing. Most heads I know training pretty hard get some scran or a carb-protein shake in ASAP post session.

There's a whole lot of mad fcukers out there training 12-15 hours a week with full time jobs. Many doubles sessions obliged.

I need to get more carbs in.

I try to get carbs in anywhere around my early morning or lunch sessions. But I'm at stuck in the office the rest of the day.

runawaybishop · 10-02-2015 12:06pm

Off the phone now, expect longer answers

Duck's hoop wrote: »

My guess would be in the thousands in this country alone. Dozens known to me personally. And only maybe 6 actual 'carded' athletes.

But again, why do cyclists, runners, rowers take fuel on during sessions. Never mind between? Shouldn't someone tell them there's no need?

Depending on the activity, and pace / effort 90 minutes could burn 14-1800 cals in 90 mins. That's significant and will require a refuel post haste.

2x sessions that consume up to 1.8k calories each puts the average lad at a calorie requirement daily of well over 6000 calories. You are also looking at the calorie expenditure of running a marathon and this on a regular basis? This is elite territory and you'll receive a small benefit for consuming carbs post workout but nothing large over the benefit of consuming adequate nutrition on a daily basis.

Shouldn't someone tell them there's no need? <-- send them here if you want and I'll tell them. I'll also tell them there is no harm in eating afterwards.

Duck's hoop wrote: »

Fair enough. I think we're basically saying the same thing. Most heads I know training pretty hard get some scran or a carb-protein shake in ASAP post session.

I also know a lot of people who will try and get carbs and protein into them asap after a workout, doesn't mean they are right. Absorption will be elevated for 2 hours afterwards, but you will still absorb the required nutrients as long as you eat within ~24 hours. Unless you are a fairly serious athlete that engages in multiple glycogen depleting events and doesn't eat for extended periods you don't need to worry about it. Most people will still be processing food throughout their training session anyway.

This is in relation to carbs btw, there is even less need when it costs to protein.

ford2600 · 10-02-2015 12:57pm

runawaybishop wrote: »

I also know a lot of people who will try and get carbs and protein into them asap after a workout, doesn't mean they are right. Absorption will be elevated for 2 hours afterwards, but you will still absorb the required nutrients as long as you eat within ~24 hours. Unless you are a fairly serious athlete that engages in multiple glycogen depleting events and doesn't eat for extended periods you don't need to worry about it. Most people will still be processing food throughout their training session anyway.

This is in relation to carbs btw, there is even less need when it costs to protein.

I have found the quick carb refill of a noticeable benefit only after very long fasted training, circa 130km cycles completely fasted or circa 200km with very little to eat. If I don't the body screams for food very reguraly in the following 24hrs

For most non elite level, eating clean and to appetite will tick most boxes

ectoraige · 12-02-2015 3:44pm

runawaybishop wrote: »

I also know a lot of people who will try and get carbs and protein into them asap after a workout, doesn't mean they are right. Absorption will be elevated for 2 hours afterwards, but you will still absorb the required nutrients as long as you eat within ~24 hours. Unless you are a fairly serious athlete that engages in multiple glycogen depleting events and doesn't eat for extended periods you don't need to worry about it. Most people will still be processing food throughout their training session anyway.

This is in relation to carbs btw, there is even less need when it costs to protein.

There is one factor not being mentioned here that is in favour of post-workout food - best laid plans go wrong.

For example, you often hear people talking about taking protein after strength training, with a "science minute" explanation given that muscle regeneration starts as soon as finish training. This however ignores the fact that your body needs to already have excess amino acids available at this point, and these will be acquired from your previous protein intake. The muscle-growth process can then go on for up to two days, provided there a sufficient excess of amino acids available.

So provided your planned diet includes regular sufficient intake of protein over the period leading up to and following your workout, it shouldn't really matter when exactly you eat. If there was a time-critical meal, it would be the one pre-workout, not post. So you should be able to plan your diet based on your expected activity level, without any "post-workout" gimmicks.

However, this assumes that you actually do the training you planned for. If you're hit-and-miss with your training, but still eat your regular meals, then you're looking at weight gain, and extra work for your kidneys. In this regard, including post-workout food can make it easier to keep to an appropriate diet. If you don't do the training, don't consume the calories. It must be a lot easier to not drink that protein shake in the gym that you didn't go to, than to remember to reduce your portion sizes for the next few meals.

Having said that, I don't do post-workout meals, I go for the get fatter option... typing this on my recovery day eating a lovely chicken breast wrapped in bacon.

runawaybishop · 12-02-2015 4:55pm

ectoraige wrote: »

There is one factor not being mentioned here that is in favour of post-workout food - best laid plans go wrong.

For example, you often hear people talking about taking protein after strength training, with a "science minute" explanation given that muscle regeneration starts as soon as finish training. This however ignores the fact that your body needs to already have excess amino acids available at this point, and these will be acquired from your previous protein intake. The muscle-growth process can then go on for up to two days, provided there a sufficient excess of amino acids available.

So provided your planned diet includes regular sufficient intake of protein over the period leading up to and following your workout, it shouldn't really matter when exactly you eat. If there was a time-critical meal, it would be the one pre-workout, not post. So you should be able to plan your diet based on your expected activity level, without any "post-workout" gimmicks.

However, this assumes that you actually do the training you planned for. If you're hit-and-miss with your training, but still eat your regular meals, then you're looking at weight gain, and extra work for your kidneys. In this regard, including post-workout food can make it easier to keep to an appropriate diet. If you don't do the training, don't consume the calories. It must be a lot easier to not drink that protein shake in the gym that you didn't go to, than to remember to reduce your portion sizes for the next few meals.

Having said that, I don't do post-workout meals, I go for the get fatter option... typing this on my recovery day eating a lovely chicken breast wrapped in bacon.

You have 24-36 hours to do your post workout meal, so its not a big deal.

Best post workout foods?

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