What to eat post cardio?

2»

Replies

  • FitForL1fe
    FitForL1fe Posts: 1,872 Member
    eat whatever daFUQ you want post-workout

    seriously.

    and lift some weights
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
    Samm471 wrote: »
    MacMadame wrote: »
    Studies have shown two things:

    -the fastest, most efficient way to cut body fat is by lifting weights, not doing cardio

    -after doing a cardio workout, a proper recovery snack should be about 100-200 calories with a carb to protein ratio of somewhere between 2:1 to 4:1 based on the intensity of the workout. (more intense means more carbs to protein) The best window is 15 to 45 min. after exercise.

    On top of that, most bodybuilders when in a cutting phase eat a low carb diet. The science supporting this is not as strong as those other two things, but it does seem to work, at least for me.

    Based on that, I suggest doing less cardio and more strength-training in general. And then saving your carb for immediately after your workout.

    But is that true though because you burn a lot more calories doing cardio? I burn between 400-500 in HIIT cardio in an hour and I would say I don't burn anywhere near that doing strength training .. It's confusing I'm doing strength training aswell but I feel like the weight is creeping back in whereas with cardio I feel Like it's keeping it off a lot more .. I am building muscle aswell right enough

    By definition a HIIT cardio workout does not last an hour.
  • Samm471
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    I didn't mean I do constant HIIT I know it doesn't last an hour I mean I can run for maybe half an hour and do some HIIT in that then move to something else like rowing machine and row normal then put some HIIT into that I didn't mean constant HIIT for a solid hour I'm not a machine
  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    edited May 2015
    If you're just looking for recovery, science already has an idea of what to eat after cardio: whatever you want.
    "Post-exercise Glycogen Recovery and Exercise Performance is Not Significantly Different Between Fast Food and Sport Supplements."
    ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25811308
  • MacMadame
    MacMadame Posts: 1,893 Member
    Samm471 wrote: »
    \
    But is that true though because you burn a lot more calories doing cardio?
    It's not just the calories burned during a workout that count. If you do strength training, you get an "after-burn" where you keep burning calories after the workout at a higher rate than if you hadn't strength trained.

    Also, strength training builds muscle and muscle takes more calories to maintain. So you will burn more calories sitting down than you did before you had those muscles.

    Finally, if you do a lot of cardio and not much strength training, studies show you will lose muscle along with the fat. The more strength training you do, the more you lose just fat and not muscle.
  • ACyclingAdmin
    ACyclingAdmin Posts: 444 Member
    depends on the intensity and type of cardio you do, cycling is least affected by muscle tone loss and you won't need to consume much protein post work out but it depletes your glycogen stores like mad. I usually toss back a protein shake with rice milk for about 20-30gms carbs and 25ish gm protein to help with recovery but I burn about 750 calories an hour doing endurance work, so what works for me may not be in your calorie allowances.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories