BMNS: Post Workout Nutrition

People follow many different forms of nutrition protocol. Some of it based around performance, some body composition goals, some of it ethics. The important thing to remember is that your body’s physiology doesn’t take a backseat to your choices. Certain processes within your body are going to take place and you’re either going to support that or not based on what you put into your stomach.

Nowhere is that quite as relevant as the post workout window.

In this physiological state, we have just created micro tears in our muscle (sounds bad, it isn’t) and depleted our body of a significant amount of glycogen, the fuel source that we use for short, high intensity workouts that we get from dietary carbohydrates. Both of those facts mandate a need for protein and carbs.

Large servings of carbohydrates will spike our blood sugar no matter the time of day. When blood sugar is spiked, insulin is sent in to clear it from the blood because your body likes to keep blood sugar very stable and predictable. When there is a surplus, the body will always deposit it where it is most in need, and in this case, it will be your muscles. By intentionally spiking our insulin with a large serving of carbohydrates, we shuttle the needed protein amino acids to our muscles, and we use those carbs to replenish burned glycogen rather than store it.

It’s the perfect storm to crush carbs and protein, yet we want to try our best to avoid fats with that pairing. Sorry, no donuts. Fat, the most energy dense of the macronutrients, takes hours to digest and it will slow that aforementioned process. We don’t want that because we want to act fast and feed the muscles within ninety minutes or so. We want to get the carb ambulance to your muscles, not have it sit in traffic.

The post workout window is a great opportunity to enhance the productivity of your training through diet. Take advantage.

-Dave