One of the very frequent questions to coaches is: ‘How much before and after training should I eat, and what should I eat?’. If you’ve ever experienced reluctance on the training or hard to kept concentrate, maybe I can help with these few guidelines.

We need to consume 2.5 to 3 hours before training, the meal should be of foods with digestible protein and complex carbohydrate. It would be like chicken, turkey meat, fish + potatoes / rice (carbohydrates) + salad without oil (if it is training the afternoon or evening) or e.g. Müesli with low fat yogurt (if training in the morning). Each meal should be consumed slowly and moderately, because then physiological mechanisms to time, say the center of famine: ‘This quantity is sufficient for us,’ while the speed of eating and mechanisms it is often minatory to the speed of swallowing. The consequences are heavy feeling in the belly and, of course, the impossibility of doing any physical activity. Avoid fruit before training. Fruits can cause unpleasant feeling of flatulence during training.

After the training, it is necessary to compensate for the lost of glycogen amount in muscle(a buttocks are big consumers of energy, that is what it is more active muscular mass, and greater intensity). So it’s an opportunity for a piece of chocolate, banana, or peach. Muscles need glycogen is so high that all that you eat goes directly into the muscles, not in subcutaneous adipose tissue. But don’t eat too much sweet!

Up to two hours after the training, you should be re-eat a balanced meal, which now may contain more difficult digestible foods(such as legumes, veal, beef, swine, eggs …).

The biggest mistake what recreational exerciser do is starvation after training. As we have said, the muscles are big consumers. After the training they are in state of catabolism or ”disintegration”. Providing nutrients substances give them the possibility of regeneration. If the muscle does not regenerates, it collapses, and thus reduce the consumption and the level and metabolism. Long term results are not achieved by starving, but planned long-term training and gradual harmonization of food habits.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!