Eat This, Not That…or That — Pre and Post-Workout Do’s and Don’ts
Because what you do in the gym is only 20% of the battle.
We spend hours every week testing the limits of our strength, the strength of our will, and our will to push through the pain. There’s no love lost once you step through those gym doors. After all, this is our health! We don’t just want to add five more pounds to our squat, we need it. Just like we need five more reps on those hanging leg raises. Just like we need five more pull-ups. Just like we need five more minutes on the treadmill. We need them if we ever wish to achieve the goals we set so high.
Just like we need every ounce of grit we can muster up in the gym, we also need every ounce of fuel, good fuel, to make it all worth it.
What many fitness grinders don’t fully understand is that what you can pull off in the gym is predicated almost entirely on the food you put in your body and when. It’s also the deciding factor on how your body ultimately looks in the long term and how you feel in the short term.
By understanding how you should be eating, for your workouts and away from your workouts, you can increase the ROI of the time you spend in the gym. Let’s dive into it.
Before The Gym
Everything about your pre-workout meals always comes back to something called, “gastric emptying”. Gastric emptying is the process by which food and liquid pass from the stomach to the small intestines where most of the nutrients in food is absorbed. The faster gastric emptying occurs the sooner our body gets ahold of the energy inside the food. This is critical since, we all know, exercise requires energy!
Different foods, however, are going to affect gastric emptying in different ways by either slowing it down or speeding it up. Foods that slow down gastric emptying take longer to digest and make it through our stomach which is going to give us a lot of aches and pains during exercise.
We want foods that are going to be rapidly digested and absorbed so we are running on a light stomach, avoiding distress in our GI tract (stomach and intestines), and have plenty of energy available.
Here are some Do’s and Don’ts for your pre-workout meal/snack.
Do
- Drink up — make sure you have at least a full 80z glass of water before a workout. It will increase hydration, improving performance, and to an extent can help with the speed of digestion of your food.
- Carb City — People are so deathly afraid of carbs, but they’re our main source of energy every day and critical during workouts. There’s two types of carbs: high glycemic index (simple carbs) and low glycemic index (complex carbs). Simple, or high glycemic, have been given a bad wrap and I’ll address that soon in this article, but for exercise they’re your best bet. Unlike complex carbs, they’re broken down into glucose for energy very rapidly and cause a big spike in your blood sugar. This means your glucose availability is much higher which is important because glucose is a major source of energy, the first one your body goes to during exercise. A perfect example here would be a banana, but you can do your Googles for more.
Don’t
- Avoid Seconds — Overeating is the quickest way to heart burn, cramping, vomitting, and other GI pain. In the words of a wise man —
Don’t do it, please don’t do it. — Drake
- Ditch The Gatorade — High energy drinks like Gatorade or Powerade slow down gastric emptying. No bueno.
- Limit Protein and Fat — Yes, if you workout in any capacity, protein is an essential component of your recovery. Note, I said recovery, as in after your workout. Both protein and fat take longer to digest than carbs do which can cause some stomach problems. What I’m basically saying is, no Chipotle pit stops before the gym. Trust me on that.
- Fiber One? More Like Fiber None — Foods high in fiber will slow down gastric emptying, hold on to water content, and bloat you. Also, you’ll probably be making an untimely run to the locker room for some, uh, “business”.
After The Gym
After a workout, our body goes into recovery mode as it cools down (literally), restores glycogen and other energy stores, and repairs damaged muscle tissue. Any seasoned weightlifter will tell you all about the importance of protein in muscle recovery after a big weightlifting session, but what else do you need to know?
Do’s
- Have A Big Meal — This is the time to chow down. A big meal composed of ample sources of protein and carbs is the perfect way to cap off a strong workout. I do have to qualify this by adding only have a big meal, if it coincides with the rest of your day. For example, if you workout early in the morning, make your post-workout meal your breakfast. Same with lunch and dinner. Of course, some people opt for several small meals a day rather than the traditional big three. That’s fine. Do what works for you. If it isn’t time for a sizeable meal, a blended protein shake or some fruits and veggies along with some almonds are good options.
- Carb It Up, Again — This is mainly directed at those doing heavy loads of cardio as your glycogen (stored glucose kept available in the muscles for rapid energy) stores are depleted and your body needs carbs to replenish them. Again, simple carbs that are digested quickly and absorbed rapidly are best. Throughout the day, though, it is best to supply your body with low glycemic (complex) carbs that digest slowly and don’t cause a sharp rise in blood sugar. These carbs are digested and used up throughout the day which is important because, unless we’re working out, we don’t need all that energy all at once. This is why simple carbs are labeled “bad” because, unless used for energy immediately, the big sugar spike we receive ends up stored as fat.
- Protein — This applies whether you did cardio or resistance, but especially after a resistance workout. The whole point of having protein after a workout is to aid your body in replacing and repairing muscle proteins that were damaged during exercise. During heavy resistance training, the contractile forces you’re placing on your muscles is much higher than in cardio and as a result a phenomenon known as “microtrauma”, microscopic tears in the muscle tissue, results. The body responds by rebuilding these tissues, making them stronger in order to resist the same trauma next time. Protein, made up of amino acids, intake is essential because it’s the building block of all body tissue including muscle tissue.
If you have questions regarding anything talked about in this article, or the topic of pre and post-workout meals itself, drop a comment! I’d love to help out!
Sources
Special shout out to Jasmine U Speaks for the inspiration for this article. I hope this helped!
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About The Author: I’m Zach Newman. I’m an ACE Certified Personal Trainer. Conversation is insanely important to me. Its why I love creating things because creation sparks discussion and discussion is the best way to learn from each other. Whether its about fitness and health, what books to read, or what’s going on in the world today, my goal is to build the best community around conversations that better the lives of everyone involved.
