eating after the gym

OLDYELLAR

hey whats the deal with eating after the gym , ive just recently started but my days are a bit mad and i end up gym 7-8 and then dinner about 9 , i basically eat nothing all day except a sandwich , does the dinner after the gym cancel everything ive done ?

snappieT

Since your body is kicked into overdrive for energy after excercise, digestion does overkill - and you can end up doing more than reversing your gym work.

As for eating nothing except a sandwich, its better to have something (no matter how small) in your stomach at all times: otherwise, you can go into hibernation survival mode, and you will overkill on the sandwich also.

OLDYELLAR

so basically eating after the gym reverses all the work i done and means i need not have worked out at all?I just dont have time for a dinner during the day and im trying to stick to gym 3 times a week , i want to loose about a stone by christmas and basically get my tummy back to flat , whats the best way to go about this?

logic1

snapscan1212p wrote:

Since your body is kicked into overdrive for energy after excercise, digestion does overkill - and you can end up doing more than reversing your gym work.

As for eating nothing except a sandwich, its better to have something (no matter how small) in your stomach at all times: otherwise, you can go into hibernation survival mode, and you will overkill on the sandwich also.

Do not listen to this post as it's absolute rubbish. You *need* to eat within an hour after the gym. It's basically essential, otherwise your body will start to canibalise it's own muscle tissue for enery.

Preferably you'll have a meal high in protein with a carb source to allow shuttling of protein into the muscle cells.

.logic.

joc_06

snapscan1212p wrote:

you can end up doing more than reversing your gym work.

Oh my god i cant believe im just reading this.
It's the exact opposite of the truth!!

What you do when you train is you exert your muscles causing them to tear (if that is the term but only minutely anyway)
Once this has occured there is a small window of time in which regrowth of muscle occurs. Many papers have been done on this to know the optimum time for eating but it is somewhere between 20 mins and 30 mins - no later.

As logic said you should eat protein/amino as these are the building blocks of muscle. Im not too sure about carbs if you are trying to lose a stone. Note im not advocating atkins but i find when im trying to lose weight what i do is:

Small breakfast - cereal around 9
Largish dinner - around 12 with all your usual - no butter/bread/milk
Train like a demon around 7 for an hour. I never do it but recommended is long runs at 60-70% of your max.
Fruit and loads of water after.

This is not related to any science or anything but it works for me.
good luck and always remember than unless some1 is an athlete/coach/physio then what they say may be misleading.

logic1

joc_06 wrote:

Im not too sure about carbs if you are trying to lose a stone. Note im not advocating atkins but i find when im trying to lose weight what i do is:

Small breakfast - cereal around 9
Largish dinner - around 12 with all your usual - no butter/bread/milk
Train like a demon around 7 for an hour. I never do it but recommended is long runs at 60-70% of your max.
Fruit and loads of water after.

Then you're having carbs Carbs are essential for fat loss, however the type of carbs is the important choice.

I like a good selection of complex carbs, wholegrain rice, wholemeal bread, pasta, fruit etc.. all excellant to help weight loss.

.logic.

joc_06

Silly of me - fruit = carbs but i was kind of thinking stay away from pasta, bread, potatoes if you want to lose weight. Pasta and white bread are killer's unless you are training hard.

OLDYELLAR

aww flip i like live on pasta , ive given up all the crappy stuff like crisps and that though , eating fruit brown bread loads a youghurt stuff like that ,

logic1

OLDYELLAR wrote:

aww flip i like live on pasta , ive given up all the crappy stuff like crisps and that though , eating fruit brown bread loads a youghurt stuff like that ,

Go with wholemeal pasta you'll be alright. Try to eat your main meals earlier in the day, don't have any carbs after about 6 or 7pm.

Eat small meals regularly.

.logic.

OLDYELLAR

thanks lads , i didnt even know you could get wholemeal pasta , great stuff

Gymboy

This post below was posted to a UK forum www.muscleforum.co.uk by a poster called abiveggie. It's well worth a read for anyone interested in gaining muscle and losing fat. Hope it's of interest/relevance

Lean bulking:

This can be expensive, bland and difficult to crack at first as it is reliant on trial and error. The basic premise is to determine your protein requirements via the BM scale using a glycemic scale and supplements to add or subtract carbs to you find your own ‘lean & building’ diet. Now the GI scale is simply a scale of how quickly your body breaks down certain foods - the quicker the conversion - the higher on the scale. (a good guide is ‘the GI DIET - virgin books - isbn 0-7535-0775-7)

You calorie requirements:
For adult males, multiply your body weight by 10, then add double the body weight to this value. For example, me a 240.8 pound male:
2,400 + (2 x 240) = 2,880 cal/day
For females, multiply body weight by 10, then add only the body weight (once) to this value. For example, a 120 pound female:
1,200 + 120 = 1,320 cal/day

However, as you may not have as much ‘rapid fuel’. This can lead to excess of the corticotrophin-releasing hormone, which signals the pituitary to release cortisol. Almost immediately after a stressful event (a hard train without adequate post and pre simple carbs), the levels of the regulatory hormone CRH increase, causing an immediate rise in cortisol levels. When cortisol is secreted, it causes a breakdown of muscle via muscle protein, leading to release of amino acids (the "building blocks" of protein) into the bloodstream. These amino acids are then used by the liver to synthesise glucose for energy, in a process called gluconeogenesis. This process raises the blood sugar level so the brain will have more glucose for energy to cope with prolonged stress vie energy depletion.

On this you have a 6 to 1 diet - 6 days diet, one day off. No alcohol on the off days & no caffeine at all. And no or as near to no carbs after 7pm.

Protein:
First, work out how much protein you need (ie 1g per pound as a minimum). Now just to clear up a popular misconception - excess protein WILL turn to fat. A calorie is just a measure of heat, as in how much energy is used to burn the food (remember the burning of a peanut at school?) Start low on the protein and work up if you feel your size suffers. Rich, a client of mine has only .75g of protein per pound and is growing well.
There is 4 calories per gram of protein.
So for me, a 240lb male - 240g @ 1.5g per lb = 1440 calories.

Fat:
Fat is essential in a diet, I work of 15% (30% maximum) of your diet is made from fats (including EFA’s). there is 9 calories per gram of fat.
So 30% of 2,880 calories is 432 calories. At 9 calories per g = 48g.


So now if we add our fat and protein (1488) we can subtract from the total to find our carb amount (2880) = 1392 calories of carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate:
As you can see, the figure is well below the recommended 55 to 60% (as that would be 1728 calories). that is a reduction of around 300 calories. 300 less calories a day will lose about 1lb of fat per week - thats near on 4 stone a year!! However this figure of fat loss was conducted under lab conditions - you will level out and loose weight until you plateau out and sustain a lean figure while still banging on mass. Simple carb (hi GI am - complex carb pm)

GI foods:
Stick to high GI early and low in the afternoon. If needed use glucose before and after a train to keep you catabolic and to stop glycogenisis.

Hi GI foods:
Muesli, cereals, cottage cheese, whole milk, bacon, sausages, white bread, bagels, all dried fruits, chips, potatoes, broad beans, etc.

Low GI foods:
porridge, all bran, skimmed milk, fat free cheese, soy or whey protein (good huh!), lean ham, lean poultry, wholemeal bread, apples, peaches, oranges (yes oranges), plumbs, grapes, most vege, olive oil spread.

My basis is a foundation of protein that I can build on with carbs. With supplements (protein) I can add or subtract as much or little carbs as I like. If weight loss is a bit fast, factor in more carbs as you have about 75g to play with in the bank (from the 300 cal loss above). Or add extra protein with the 75g spare. The key is trial and error. With a supplement such as 90+ very low GI you can keep up the protein after 7pm without using carbs.

OLDYELLAR

cool thanx, watch out folks , laura goina get a muscle and use it

logic1

OLDYELLAR wrote:

cool thanx, watch out folks , laura goina get a muscle and use it

I've got a muscle you can use.

.logic.

OLDYELLAR

yer shocking so ya are, u got a link?:)