Tip: Eating Certain Foods at Certain Times

SaraTN · October 2010

I just posted a long topic regarding helpful websites. The links did not go through so you need to cut and paste but I thought I would also post some information from those websites that I am finding helpful and hopefully you will too.

Eating certain foods at certain times

-After strength training workouts, eat protein and carbs. Within 30-45 minutes of finishing. This is a great time for the carbs to be sugar, because the sugar breaks down quickly in your body and travels to the muscles to replace the glycogen used for energy during the workout. The idea is that the protein will be taken along with it. As an example I drink a protein shake and eat a banana or any fruit. Or you can have protein powder in skim milk (as milk has sugar and protein). Or eat a can of tuna and some bread. Or some eggs and a bagel or bread. But any fruit with a protein source would be best, as white bread and bagels have a lot of processed carbs in them along with sugar, you really don't want to make a habit of eating them because you will want to avoid them at other times.

-After cardio workout, don't eat for an hour. Drink lots of water, but there is no need to eat right away. while you were exercising, you were burning fat, and that can continue after you finish. Your body is still in that fat burning mode, it doesn't realize that you stopped running. but the moment you eat that stops.

-Before cardio, many people recommend that you don't eat and they recommend that you do the cardio in the morning right after waking up. You are in a fasted state when you wake up, you don't have any food in you to use as energy so, the idea is that you pull from your fat stores for energy by doing low intensity workouts. These are workouts where your heart is like 70% max value, and you do it for roughly 45 minutes. For running, 70% is fast enough to give you a good sweat and get you breathing hard, but you don't want to be sprinting, and of course you need to be able to go for 45 minutes, any longer and you risk consuming your own muscle. Walking pretty fast at a high incline is also good. The elliptical, rowing, bicycle, stepper, all of these are good. BUT, you don't HAVE to do this. If cardio in the morning doesn't work for you and you want to do it when you come home from work, that is fine. IF you want to do it at night that is fine too. It is more important that you do it, then when you do it. And if you want to eat it a little before, that is probably fine to. but later in the day there is probably no need to eat before cardio.

-Avoid eating carbs (other than vegetables) for the last couple of hours before you go to bed. If you sleep at 12 midnight, then stop eating carbs at 9 pm. Eating carbs right before you go to sleep is the best way to add fat as you sleep. If you perform weightlifting at night and eat carbs as apart of a post workout meal, that should be fine.

-Eat a slow digesting protein source right before bed. For example cottage cheese, protein powder in milk, or a protein powder designed to digest over time, like Nitrean. The protein helps preserve muscle overnight.

taken from
http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=19229