What to Eat Before and After a Workout

Each time you exercise, the goal should be to try and maintain good health. It’s no secret that you have to ingest food as well, so your body will have the energy it requires to exercise and still have adequate energy left over for daily tasks. In order to make the best of your exercise, pay attention to what you consume before and after your exercise.

You should always make it a point to ingest a balanced mixture of protein and carbohydrates if you are planning on doing either a cardio exercise or a resistance exercise. The ratio of carbs and protein you eat should be determined by if you are performing a cardio workout or a resistance workout and the difficulty level you plan to work at.

The best time for you to consume your pre-workout meal is an hour before you begin. If you plan to work out at a low difficulty level, you should restrict your pre-workout meal to two hundred calories or so. Alternatively, if you decide to work out at an extreme level of difficulty, you might want to make your meal so that it is between four thousand and five thousand calories.

Persons who are completing a cardio exercise will want to consume a mixture of two thirds carbohydrates and one third proteins. This provides longer sustained energy from the additional carbohydrates with still a sufficient amount of protein to prevent muscle from breaking down during physical training. In the case of resistance workouts, you'll want to consume a mixture of one third carbohydrates and two thirds protein. This will provide you with lots of energy from the carbohydrates to complete each set you do while the extra protein will help keep muscle breakdown to a minimum.

Eating the proper foods after you work out is every bit as imperative as consuming your pre-workout meal. Whenever you execute a cardio or resistance workout, you draw down energy in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is the main supply of energy for the brain and central nervous system. It’s important to know that if you fail to replace glycogen after you work out, your body will start to break down your muscle tissue and change this into amino acids. The amino acids are then converted into usable energy for the brain and the central nervous system at the expense of the muscle you have been striving so hard to amass.

During resistance exercises, muscle tissue is broken down by creating micro-tears. After a workout, your muscles go automatically into repair mode. Protein is critically important for muscle repair. You don't need muscle breaking down even further to make fuel in place of lost glycogen.

At the end of a cardio exercise, you'll want to eat mainly carbs. Pick carbohydrates that are high in fiber. Fruits, rice, whole wheat pasta and oatmeal are superb sources of this kind of carb. Try to eat thirty to fifty grams of 3 types of carbohydrates after you work out. It’s fine to eat within 5 -10 minutes after your cardio exercise. After completing a resistance exercise, you should consume a combination of carbohydrates and protein. Remember, resistance exercises will break down muscle tissue by creating micro-tears which is not a problem with cardio exercises.

You'll want to replace protein, as this occurs, to heal and restore these tears so that your muscles can build up in size and strength. Not only will the carbohydrates replace the lost muscle glycogen, but they will, in addition, assist the protein in getting into muscle cells. This protein can synthesize into structural protein (the muscle itself).

When your resistance workout is over, you must wait up to thirty minutes before you eat, so that you will not take blood away from your muscles too quickly by forcing it to go to the digestive process. The blood in your muscles will help the repair process by removing metabolic waste products.

About the Author:

Bob Gillespie writes on many subjects including fat loss and exercise. He is a full-time Internet marketer and author who lives on the island of Maui in Hawaii. Learn more about fat loss and exercise at Bob's blog at:

http://lose-belly-fat.inetwyoming.com

Other blogs of possible interest:

http://body-building-foods.inetwyoming.com

and

http://muscle-building.inetwyoming.com