You know you need to eat after a workout—but do you know what to eat and when? Fitness model Lauren Frahn tells you the smart way to refuel after a workout.
So, you’ve just finished a killer workout at the gym. Okay, now what? Do you opt to take a breather and grab food later because you are just too tired to eat at this point? Do you wait to eat until you get home, after you’ve taken a shower to get ready for work? Or, do you hold off until after you’ve finish running your daily errands? NO WAY! The timing and quality of your post-workout meal is arguably one of the most important details in your quest for a better body.
Your post-workout meal is the meal that plays the largest role in supplying your body with everything that it will need to repair, rebuild, recover and adapt to the beating that you just gave your muscles during your workout. Think about it this way: You cannot build a house without the proper combination of bricks and mortar. Well, your muscles cannot rebuild themselves without the proper building blocks of protein and carbohydrates. You absolutely must provide muscles with the raw materials and supplies that they need in order to recover and grow. An efficient workout is not complete until you properly eat!
If time is your excuse for not getting in a meal, the solution is easy: go liquid. Prepare a whey protein shake before you go to the gym and have it ready for immediately after your workout. The protein will be quickly absorbed and will help to optimize the rebuilding and recovery process. And, if you want the best-tasting protein on the market, I highly suggest you give our Lean Body For Her shakes a try!
Ladies, the fact is that no matter what you should have a post-workout meal or shake ASAP after you are finished exercising. This means no longer than 30 minutes to one-hour max. If a shake works best for you, drink your shake, but make sure to get a balanced meal of whole foods in within another 1-1.5 hours. Why is this so important? During your workout, you deplete your carbohydrate stores in your muscles because these carbs are used for energy. Therefore, you need to replace these carbs with… you guessed it, more carbs! The carbohydrates are needed to release a large amount of insulin and increase protein repair. This meal will help your body start to rebuild the muscles that you just worked so hard at breaking down in the gym, which is ultimately what results in lean muscle growth. Note, too, that this meal should be extremely low in fat because fat slows down the digestion process, and we want to feed those muscles as quickly as possible!
To give you an idea as to some good options, let’s start with my go-to post-workout meal of choice. As a personal preference, I like to chew my food rather than drink it, but I know that many are the opposite and prefer just a quick and convenient shake. Being that I workout in the morning, when I get home after a workout, I will either make: 1) Protein pancakes (made with oats, egg whites, one of Labrada’s Lean Body For Her protein powders, and cinnamon); 2) Plain oatmeal and egg whites (sometimes mixed together; or 3) Oatmeal mixed with one of our Lean Body protein powders. Even if I can’t get right home after a workout, I will have one of these meals with me ready to go. Now, those are just my picks, but there are many other alternatives. Besides egg whites, chicken breast, lean beef and tuna fish are great sources of lean protein. For your carb selection, remember that you want them to be of fast-digesting variety, so besides instant oats, some other great options are pasta, white potatoes and rice. No matter what your preference is, the key is to make sure that you are getting the right amount of proteins and carbs in soon after your workout. Mix and match whatever combinations please your taste buds—just be sure to have lots of lean protein and simple carbohydrates. The “how” really doesn’t matter as long as you get in your post-workout chow.
Now, go train hard, ladies! And remember: Your meal should not wait after lifting that weight!
