The Right Post Workout Meal Will Speed Your Progress

Exercising burns calories and builds muscle, that’s what it's intended to do.  But because of that, it is important for everyone, regardless of their goals, to pay attention to getting the right post workout meal.

Even if you’re exercising to lose weight, and especially if your goal is to bulk up or if you’re recovering from an injury, eating something after exercising is a good idea.  By the same token, what you eat after exercising is just as important.

Pretty much everyone has heard of carbo-loading if you’re about to run a marathon or participate in some other activity that requires a sustained energy output for a long period of time.  That isn’t strictly necessary before swimming, running, lifting or cross training for an hour or two.  Nor is it particularly good afterwards.

Eating a huge spaghetti dinner the night before running 26.2 miles will not only help you sleep well, but also help to store energy in the body for use in the morning. Doing the same thing after exercising will only give you the sleeping well part.  The right balance of vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber however, will replace a lot of what you burned without contributing to a post-workout bout of getting your nose stuck in your keyboard from falling asleep on it, or pile on a lot of the extra calories you were just trying to burn.

Even if you are not looking to lose weight or are trying to heal, protein and fiber are more important than simple carbohydrates that will break down into sugars.