This is what the perfect post-workout meal looks like
This is what the perfect post-workout meal looks like. Your training will only really pay off if you eat right. You can read here which foods you should eat after exercise and which you should avoid
For maximum success in sports, it is important to pay attention to your diet and not just to training stimuli. It doesn’t matter whether you want to lose weight, burn fat or build muscle: the time after training is particularly important in determining how effective the pumping and sweating really was. With the right post-workout meal, you can get the best out of yourself and your body. How to Find the Best Time for Muscle Building Training
What should I drink after exercise?
But the most important thing first: drink enough fluids! You lose a lot of fluids through sweating. Therefore, you should fill up your water reserves after and during your workout. This will not only make your body more efficient, it will also be able to regenerate better. Water plays an important role in many metabolic processes.
Your muscle tissue is made up of around 80 percent water. It’s no wonder that the slightest change in your body’s water content can affect your training performance and negatively impact recovery. Water ensures that nutrients are transported to where they are needed and waste products are flushed out of the body.
However, if plain water is too boring for you, you can also use a healthy syrup to motivate yourself to drink. For example, there is the Vital Drink Zerop from Best-Body-Nutrition . The taste of apples and elderflowers not only quenches your thirst, but the ingredients, consisting of vitamin B1, B6 and niacin, provide your body with essential nutrients.
With Vital Drink Zerop, drinking water is twice as tasty and twice as healthy.
If you regularly do endurance sports, you can also drink isotonic drinks such as apple juice spritzer and non-alcoholic beer or wheat beer, for example from Erdinger . Running etc. causes you to sweat a lot and you lose fluids and salts through sweat. Isotonic drinks have the same ratio of nutrients to fluids as our blood, i.e. the osmotic value is the same. This means your body can absorb and use the nutrients particularly quickly. The minerals they contain, such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and calcium, as well as vitamins, also prevent muscle cramps. However, pure water should make up the majority of your fluid intake.
Do I have to eat anything after exercise?
Yes, absolutely! Even if you are trying to lose weight. Immediately after training, your body lacks important nutrients that you need to quickly replenish so that it can function properly again. If you don’t eat anything after exercise, you risk losing muscle sooner or later. This is what you need to eat in the definition phase to reveal your muscles
What nutrients does my body need after training?
Beginners in particular are often overwhelmed by the topic and quickly reach for the wrong foods.
Tip: You don’t want to worry about your post-workout meal? Then our nutrition coaching is just right for you!
We’ll tell you which of the three macronutrients – protein, fat and carbohydrates – your body needs most urgently.
1. Carbohydrates prevent muscle loss
Nothing works during training without carbs, because carbohydrates are our number one source of energy. During training, your body gets energy from the glycogen stores in the muscles. Glycogen is the storage form of glucose (simple sugar) and is stored in both the muscle cells and the liver. After a tough cardio session in particular, it is important to quickly refill the empty glucose stores – and carbs are ideal for this. Because carbohydrates are basically nothing other than sugar. If the body has enough carbohydrates available after exercise, regeneration is also accelerated.
If you deny your body carbohydrates after exercise (or starve yourself completely), you activate what is known as gluconeogenesis. Through this metabolic process, the body tries to produce new glucose itself out of necessity, for example with the help of amino acids (protein building blocks). The problem: If glucose is missing as an energy source, the body will, in the worst case, get the necessary “material” from the muscles. And that can mean muscle loss.
These are the best carbohydrate sources for your post-workout meal:
- potatoes & sweet potatoes
- rice
- quinoa
- millet
- couscous
- Orzo
- whole wheat pasta
- Legumes such as kidney beans or chickpeas
The extent to which your glycogen stores have been depleted depends on your training: endurance athletes need to replenish carbs the most because they burn a lot of energy. Strength athletes rarely push the limits of their glucose stores during their workout and need fewer replenishments.
Fast carbs, like those found in rice, are ideal after exercise The 5 most popular physical fitness activities to stay in shape
2. Protein for muscle building and regeneration
Especially after strength training, your muscles need a good portion of protein, so you should focus on protein-rich foods in your post-workout diet. Your muscles are made of proteins, or more precisely, protein building blocks, amino acids. The body produces its own protein from the dietary protein (also known in technical jargon as protein biosynthesis), which it then uses, for example, to build new muscle fibers.
But protein-rich foods after a workout not only promote muscle building, but also regeneration, because micro-tears in the muscles urgently need to be repaired after fitness training. Immediately after training, you can consume protein in the form of a whey protein shake , for example . You can also refine this with fresh fruit, which also provides fast carbohydrates. The more and more intensively you exercise, the more protein your body needs after training. Around 20 to 30 grams of protein after a hard workout is just right. With a protein shake, you can quickly reach this amount.
Chicken breast, beef, cottage cheese and low-fat curds as well as legumes, tuna and eggs are ideal as a source of protein for your post-workout meal.
3. Fats optimize protein absorption
After training, you should focus on easily digestible nutrients, such as fast carbohydrates and high-quality proteins. Foods with a high fat content, on the other hand, prolong the time they stay in the stomach. Therefore, the food you eat before exercising should also be low in fat, otherwise it will sit heavily in your stomach during exercise.
After training, you can eat fat in moderation and ideally in combination with protein-rich, low-fat foods such as poultry or low-fat cottage cheese . Salmon and tuna are also good sources of protein.
When is the best time to eat after exercise?
You can have your first small fitness snack, for example in the form of a shake , low-fat quark or cottage cheese with fruit, immediately after training – or up to 30 minutes later. At the latest 2 hours later, it is time for the right post-workout meal, which consists of carbohydrate- or protein-rich foods. Around 60 percent of the energy you give your body after a workout should consist of carbs in order to quickly replenish energy stores after training.
By the way: You can also have a small pre-workout snack around 30 to 60 minutes before exercising .
10 ideas for your post-workout meal
The first large meal around 1-2 hours after training should contain plenty of protein and a large portion of vegetables (such as broccoli) as well as a carbohydrate-rich side dish such as rice or potatoes. A classic recipe is this quick rice dish with peppers and chicken . Other possible combinations:
- (Brown) rice with lean poultry (turkey or chicken) and vegetables
- Potatoes with egg and canned tuna
- Scrambled eggs or omelette with millet and vegetables
- Minced meat with rice and kidney beans, chickpeas or similar
- sweet potatoes with poultry and vegetables
- Rice and cottage cheese with canned tuna
- beef fillet strips with vegetables and rice
- Salmon fillet with quinoa or couscous and vegetables
- Tofu with vegetables and brown rice
- Wholemeal pasta with poultry and vegetables
Rest after exercise: promote regeneration
The strain of sport leads to tiny tears in the muscles that need to be repaired. And for this, your body not only needs sufficient protein from food, but above all rest and time. A healthy diet helps you to regenerate better. It uses this regeneration phase not only to heal micro-injuries, but also to strengthen the muscle fibers. This process is called supercompensation. If you apply a new training stimulus too early, the effect is lacking and you even lose performance.
Perfect post-workout meal for best training results
In order to effectively build muscle , burn fat or lose weight in the long term , you have to pay attention to your diet. The secret to a good post-workout meal is healthy, quickly digestible carbohydrates that quickly supply the body with energy (again), in combination with high-quality protein . This way, nothing stands in the way of your fitness goal.
