Anytime youexercise, you do so in order to try and maintain good health. You also know thatyou have to eat as well, so your body will have the energy it needs to exerciseand maintain for the everyday tasks of life. For making the best of your exercise, what you eat before and after youworkout is very important.
No matter if youare going to be doing a cardio workoutor a resistance workout, you should always make it a point to eat a balancedmix of protein and carbohydrates. Whatmakes that determining percentage of carbs and protein you consume is whetheror not you are doing cardio or resistance exercise and the intensity level thatyou plan to work at.
The ideal timefor you to eat your pre workout meal is an hour before you start. If you plan to work at a low intensity level,you should keep your pre workout meal down to 200 calories or so. If you plan to exercise at a high level ofintensity, you will probably need your meal to be between 4,000 and 5,000 calories.
Those of you whoare doing a cardio session will need to consume a mix of 2/3 carbs and 1/3protein. Doing so will give you longer sustained energy from the extra carbswith enough protein to keep your muscle from breaking down while you exercise.
For resistanceexercise, you’ll need to eat a mix of 1/3 carbs and 2/3 protein, as this willhelp you get plenty of energy from the carbs to perform each set you do and theextra protein will help keep muscle breakdown to a minimum while you exercise.
Eating after youexercise is just as important as your pre workout meal. Anytime you exercise, whether its cardio orresistance, you deplete energy in the form of glycogen. The brain and central nervous system rely onglycogen as their main source of fuel,so if you don’t replace it after you exercise, your body will begin to breakdown muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert them into usable fuel forthe brain and the central nervoussystem.
Keep in mind thatmostly during resistance exercise, you’ll break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears. What this means, is that after a workout, yourmuscles will instantly go into repair mode. Protein is the key here for muscle repair, as you don’t want musclebreaking down even further to create fuel instead of lost glycogen.
Once you havefinished a cardio session, you’ll need to consume mainly carbohydrates,preferably those with high fiber. Rice,oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and northern fruits are excellent sources. Also,try to consume 30 – 50 grams of there types of carbs after you exercise. After your cardio workout, it is fine to eatwithin 5 – 10 minutes.
Once you’vefinished a resistance workout, you will need to consume a combination of carbsand protein. Unlike cardio workouts,resistance workouts will break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears.
You’ll needprotein as this happens to build up and repair these tears so that the musclecan increase in size and strength. Thecarbs will not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but will also help the protein get into musclecells so it can synthesize into structural protein, or the muscle itself.
After yourresistance exercise, you should wait up to 30 minutes before you eat, so thatyou won’t take blood away from your muscles too fast. The blood in your muscles will help therepair process by removing the metabolic waste products.
