Eating after a workout.Yay or nay?

Eat soon after every work-out. Fuel those muscles.

I always eat after a workout because they make me hungry. Portein shakes with fruit, usually, but I really don't think it matters.

YAY!

Eat soon after every work-out. Fuel those muscles.

I always eat after a workout. Generally I'm ready to murder a plate of anything. I workout late in the day, between 2pm and 5pm, so by the time I get home I' ready for a meal.

My go to so that I don't just mow through crap is String Cheese. Just a hold over until I get showered and comfy and make a good healthy meal.

If I did't eat some kind of protein I'd probably pass out, unlikely, but it feels like it.

Apparently it's good to take in some calories within the first thirty minutes after your workout.
For refueling, repairing and all that jazz.

I just finished lifting. I had a glass of chocolate milk, and now I'm eating a spinach and feta omelette. :drinker:

I always eat protein and/or greens after a workout, even if just in small quantities. Helps refuel the body! Plus, working out always makes me hungry, so I always have a little something healthy!

Um. Yes. You can eat whenever you want.

I think that's the best time to eat....but then, I wake up early to head to the gym in a semi-fasted state (haven't eaten since dinner prior. By the time I get home, I am ready to pound some food.

Eat soon after every work-out. Fuel those muscles.

Nice picture. Beefcake knows all about glycogen because he's read all the scholarship.

http://jap.physiology.org/content/72/5/1854.short


Carbohydrate-protein complex increases the rate of muscle glycogen storage after exercise
K. M. Zawadzki, B. B. Yaspelkis 3rd, and J. L. Ivy

Carbohydrate, protein, and carbohydrate-protein supplements were compared to determine their effects on muscle glycogen storage during recovery from prolonged exhaustive exercise. Nine male subjects cycled for 2 h on three separate occasions to deplete their muscle glycogen stores. Immediately and 2 h after each exercise bout, they ingested 112.0 g carbohydrate (CHO), 40.7 g protein (PRO), or 112.0 g carbohydrate and 40.7 g protein (CHO-PRO). Blood samples were drawn before exercise, immediately after exercise, and throughout recovery. Muscle biopsies were taken from the vastus lateralis immediately and 4 h after exercise. During recovery the plasma glucose response of the CHO treatment was significantly greater than that of the CHO-PRO treatment, but the plasma insulin response of the CHO-PRO treatment was significantly greater than that of the CHO treatment. Both the CHO and CHO-PRO treatments produced plasma glucose and insulin responses that were greater than those produced by the PRO treatment (P less than 0.05). The rate of muscle glycogen storage during the CHO-PRO treatment [35.5 +/- 3.3 (SE) mumol.g protein-1.h-1] was significantly faster than during the CHO treatment (25.6 +/- 2.3 mumol.g protein-1.h-1), which was significantly faster than during the PRO treatment (7.6 +/- 1.4 mumol.g protein-1.h-1). The results suggest that postexercise muscle glycogen storage can be enhanced with a carbohydrate-protein supplement as a result of the interaction of carbohydrate and protein on insulin secretion.

but that's okay because forum dude knows science from broscience.

He is talking about the fact that protein synthesis happens for a pretty long time - in fact it increases up to 24 hours after working out and then declines sharply. The above study just looked at the results for a 4 hour window.

This study looks at protein synthesis at different windows, including 4 hours, 24 hours and 36 hours.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8563679

Also, the following quote from Alan Aragon gives a good explanation:

" The post-exercise “anabolic window” is a highly misused & abused concept. Preworkout nutrition all but cancels the urgency, unless you’re an endurance athlete with multiple glycogen-depleting events in a single day. Getting down to brass tacks, a relatively recent study (Power et al. 2009) showed that a 45g dose of whey protein isolate takes appx. 50 minutes to cause blood AA levels to peak. Resulting insulin levels, which peaked at 40 minutes after ingestion, remained at elevations known to max out the inhibition of muscle protein breakdown (15-30 mU/L) for 120 minutes after ingestion. This dose takes 3 hours for insulin & AA levels to return to baseline from the point of ingestion. The inclusion of carbs to this dose would cause AA & insulin levels to peak higher & stay elevated above baseline even longer.

So much for the anabolic peephole & the urgency to down AAs during your weight training workout; they are already seeping into circulation (& will continue to do so after your training bout is done). Even in the event that a preworkout meal is skipped, the anabolic effect of the postworkout meal is increased as a supercompensatory response (Deldicque et al, 2010). Moving on, another recent study (Staples et al, 2010) found that a substantial dose of carbohydrate (50g maltodextrin) added to 25g whey protein was unable to further increase post-exercise net muscle protein balance compared to the protein dose without carbs. Again, this is not to say that adding carbs at this point is counterproductive, but it certainly doesn’t support the idea that you must get your lightning-fast post-exercise carb orgy for optimal results.

Something that people don’t realize is that there’s no “magic anabolic window” that’s open for a short period of time near the workout & then rapidly disappears. As a result of a single training bout, the receptivity of muscle to protein dosing can persist for at least 24 hours (Burd et al, 2011)."

I was never hungry after working out. No idea why, but I had zero appetite for at least an hour or two.