When you're training and aiming for a specific goal, it's smart to push the big levers first. Getting enough food, sleep and enough time to train will have the greatest impact on your results. But once you've mastered the basics, it's time to learn how to properly time your meals throughout the day.
However, time is not of the essence for everyone. If your daily routine includes regular meals and regular exercise, and you feel generally good, you may not need to interfere with timing at all. You're not “wasting” your workout if you don't eat afterwards (even though everyone on TikTok may be telling you otherwise). You also don't need to time it exactly. But there are some rules of thumb that can help you have more energy during your workouts or eat better throughout the day.
What you need to know before you start messing with time
The most important thing in nutrition is to make sure you are eating right. quantity food before you worry about what's in it or when you eat it. We measure the amount of food in calories. Eat less than you burn to lose weightmore than you burn to gain weight (useful if you're trying to gain muscle mass), or if you want neither, just keep your calories level any level keeps your weight stable. To find out how your weight relates to your calorie intake, apps like Macrofactor (or free alternatives) It's easy to do the math for you.
If changing your body size isn't a priority, you don't need to track it exactly; just make sure you don't accidentally undernourished when you don't mean to. And if you want to be in good physical shape, but continue to face obstacles – fatigue, injuries – consider increasing your calories. Sometimes your body just needs a little more fuel.
The next step is to make sure you are eating enough. protein. If you're gaining muscle, this is an important building block. If you're losing weight, eating protein (and strength training!) helps your body retain as much muscle as possible, so that most of the weight lost is fat. And if you do any strength or endurance training (like running), protein helps you maintain the muscles that help you do it all.
If you consistently get enough calories and protein, you have a much greater ability to adjust your diet to suit your tastes. We all need to get a certain amount of fat—0.5 grams per pound of body weight or more. Carbohydrates may not be essential for life (as low-carb dieters like to point out), but people who eat a lot of carbohydrates have many have a better time at the gym than those who don't. Carbohydrates provide energy for activity and prevent your body from turning to muscle tissue for additional energy.
Finally, the rest of the nutrient content of your food also matters. Fiber is important. Vitamins are important. Fruits and vegetables should be an important part of every person's diet. These substances support health, even if they are not macros (macronutrients) that you may be tracking.
I mention all this because What you eat is more important than When you eat it. If you're not getting enough protein or vegetables, fixing the situation is more important than timing it right. But if you've got the basics down, let's talk about time.
Pre-workout carbs help with energy
When we rest, body fat provides most of the fuel our body needs. The body constantly uses fat for energy, so “fat-burning” workouts or supplements are simply stupid. Fat is like a bank account: the amount is determined by how deposits offset withdrawals, not just withdrawals.
When we exercise, the slow and steady rate of fat burning has a hard time keeping up with what we ask our body to do. If we have carbohydrates in the form of blood sugar or muscle glycogen, we use them as a fuel source. If we don't get enough carbohydrates, we may feel tired or lethargic. We may still be able to complete the workout, but workouts will often feel better if we manage to get some carbohydrates in before or even during the workout.
So if you feel sluggish during your workout, consider eating some carbs beforehand. Also consider this time if your workouts start out well but you become unusually tired towards the end, or if you have a habit of working out before breakfast and want to see if eating time can benefit you. an extra boost you didn't even know you needed.
“Carbohydrates” refers to anything that contains sugar or anything that quickly breaks down into sugar, which basically means starch. If you can snack shortly before your workout, try classics like:
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Banana
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Toast or bread with jam or just a thin layer of something else like peanut butter.
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Oatmeal
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Skim milk, perhaps with cereal or muesli.
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Low-fat yogurt, optional with berries
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Smoothies made from carbohydrate foods such as fruit.
Protein and fat can slow down digestion, so don't add too much to your meal immediately before your workout. That's why you should use low-fat dairy or leave a thin layer of peanut butter on your toast. But if you're eating breakfast a few hours before your workout, feel free to opt for slower-digesting options with full-fat dairy or even add some protein powder to your smoothie.
Sugar during long workouts helps keep you going
When workouts last longer than an hour or two, you may need more than just a pre-workout snack. That's why marathon runners suck up gel packs while running and why powerlifters pass out bags of candy between sets.
If you consume carbohydrates during your workout, you need something that digests quickly. This means you need something more or less pure. Yes, you might want to avoid sugar. All in all when eating healthy, but in the middle of a workout, sugar serves a very specific purpose. It becomes available to your body very quickly to better fuel you in the moment. If you are participating in an endurance event, such as a long run or bike ride, you may want to consume 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour. Examples could be:
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Energy gels type GU
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Drinks such as Tailwind or Gatorade
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Candies such as Gummy Bears (a favorite of runners) or Sour Patch Kids (a favorite of powerlifters and weightlifters)
Many of us don't train long or hard enough to worry about this. But if you're training for a marathon or marathon and a half and find yourself craving towards the end of long runs, or if your weight-lifting sessions can last well over an hour and towards the end you find yourself resting longer and longer between sets, try a gel or mid-workout snack and see if you feel a difference.
Post-workout carbs prepare you for your second workout of the day.
If you plan to do two workouts on the same day, or if you have a late-night workout followed by another in the morning, eating after your first workout will prepare you for the second. If you've finished your workout and aren't likely to do it again until tomorrow or the day after, you don't have to worry; just eat normally.
What are your thoughts so far?
To understand why, let's take another look at muscle glycogen, one of the carbohydrate sources we use during exercise. After exercise, glycogen levels decrease. Over the next 24 hours or so we will eat carbohydrates as part of the meal and glycogen stores will be replenished again. A high carbohydrate diet helps replenish glycogen stores throughout the day and keep them full. (You may not get as much replenishment if you're on a low-carb diet like keto.)
But if you do two hard workouts a day, or if you just worked out in the evening but still want to be in better shape for your run the next morning, you can want to replenish your glycogen reserves faster. After a hard workout, your muscles are ready to store carbohydrates as glycogen if they can get them, so consider eating a high-carb meal after your workout.
Protein works best in small amounts throughout the day.
As we discussed above, the most important factor when consuming protein is the amount. To meet the Recommended Daily Allowance (the bare minimum that everyone, athlete or not), you need 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. This would be 54 grams for a 150 pound person. I have a guide to apps to help you track squirrels. even if you don't track total calories.
But if you're trying to build muscle or trying to maintain muscle mass during endurance training or when losing weight, you'll need more—0.63 to 0.82 grams per pound of body weight, depending on how intense your needs are. This would be between 95 and 123 grams for the same 150 pound person. Exceeding this amount this is usually normal for your health (talk to your doctor if you have kidney problems), but this is not necessary.
So what about time? It turns out that your body makes best use of protein if you can get it multiple times throughout the day. There is a myth that the body can only use a small amount of protein at one sitting, leading some people to believe that excess protein is “wasted.” This not entirely truebut you probably will give your body stronger signals to build muscle mass if you can spread the protein over four or five meals instead of eating low protein foods all day and then eating a giant steak for dinner.
There is also a myth that if you lift weights, you need to consume protein immediately after your workout. I have to say this for the most part myth because eating protein within a few hours of exercise is a good idea. Research shows that a regular diet is good enough to provide the timing benefits of protein intake; for example, if you go to the gym between breakfast and lunch, you're largely protected.
A good way to follow this rule of thumb is to track your total protein intake and make sure you eat at least 20 grams of protein or more several times throughout the day. This could be breakfast, lunch, a protein bar as a snack, dinner and then dinner. simple shake with protein powder in the evening.
Proteins, fats and fiber when you want to experience full or slow digestion.
We talked about fast-digesting carbohydrates (sugars, simple starches), but the downside is that other nutrients are digested more slowly. You don't need to do this when you're in the middle of a workout, but it can be helpful at other times.
For example, oatmeal keeps you full longer than white bread because it has a lot of soluble fiber. Proteins make you feel full because your stomach holds protein-containing foods longer than other foods. (The stomach is just one of many parts of the digestive system, but it's where proteins take some time to break down before moving on to the next stage.) Fats also make people feel full, although this may vary from person to person.
So, if you're eating breakfast before a long work morning and know it'll be a while before lunch, oatmeal (fiber) with almond butter (fat) and scrambled eggs (white) will keep you full much longer than toast and jam. Save the toast for later when you want a pre-workout snack.
