Best Pre & Post Workout Meals for Maximum Results

Best Pre & Post Workout Meals for Maximum Results : If you work out regularly, you already know how exercising not only keeps you fit, but ensures your body is healthy. And to ensure overall wellness of mind and body, fueling your workout with the right kind of nutrition is equally important. This is because when you workout, your body uses a lot of the existing nutrients to provide energy.

Therefore, ensuring that you consume the adequate amounts of nutrients before and after your workout is imperative to maximize on the benefits you will receive from your workout.

Best Pre & Post Workout Meals for Maximum Results

Pre-workout Fuel

To ensure that your body sustains itself through your workout regime, you need to consume foods that provide your body with the necessary fuel and juices to be able to perform without burning out or causing damage to your muscles and tissues.

While accounting for the kind of nutrients required by your body, you must also ensure you consume your pre-workout meal, so that your body can digest the food in time. The ideal time frame to eat before a workout is about 1-3 hours before starting off.

However, each body is unique and reacts to food differently. So, the best way to ensure you consume the necessary nutrients before working out is by trial and error.

Experiment and see what time frame works best for you and your body to ensure you find the right balance.

Here is how you can benefit from a power packed pre-workout meal:-

boosts performance
keeps you well-hydrated
reduces damage to your muscles
allows for quick recovery in between exercising
keeps you well hydrated.

In order to be able to receive the benefits mentioned above, you must consume a meal that has a high concentration of proteins, fats and carbs.

Following is how you can benefit from each of the nutrients mentioned above:

Proteins-

It allows you to maintain and increase your muscle mass by preventing muscle damage and degradation.
It protects your muscles by ensuring a constant flow of amino acids in your blood stream.

Carbs-

It fuels your training stamina and enhances endurance by promoting quicker recovery.
It increases muscle retention and growth by preserving muscle and liver glycogen.
It stimulates the release of insulin, thereby preventing muscle breakdown.

Fats

It helps reduce your body’s digestion rate by maintaining blood glucose and insulin levels.
It helps your body receive the necessary nutrients and vitamins required while working out.

Here is a quick pre-workout green smoothie recipe that is packed with proteins, carbs and healthy fats to help you stock up on energy:

Ingredients

2 cups kale
1 cups coconut milk
1 apple
1 frozen banana
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

Blend all the ingredients together until smooth.

Tip – You can refrigerate it a proper smoothie container to enjoy it cold or use frozen fruits to achieve the same effect.

Post-Workout Fuel

It is equally important to replenish the nutrients in your body after working out to supplement the effects of your workout regime. By consuming a nutritious post-workout meal, you also provide your body with antioxidants which help your body rejuvenate while maximizing on the effects of your workout.

When it comes to post-workout meals, the ideal time to consume it is 20 minutes after you complete your daily regime.

But this again, can depend on body type, the training you undergo as well as the composition of the meal you consume.

Following are the additional benefits of consuming a well-balanced meal/smoothie post your workout:-

re-hydrates your body
rejuvenates your system
boosts your muscle building capacity
improves your endurance till the next workout

Here are the macro-nutrients you must consume after working out to ensure proper muscle recovery and enhance endurance:

Proteins-

It prevents the breakdown of existing proteins while stimulating synthesis that promotes quicker development of muscle tissue.
It enhances the supply of amino acids in your bloodstream.

Carbs-

It enables quicker recovery by releasing the required amounts of insulin to restore glycogen.

Fats-

It ensures a higher net protein balance by supplementing your protein and carb intake.

Here is great post-workout green smoothie recipe to help your body recover properly:

Ingredients

2 cups spinach
2 cup coconut water
1 orange peeled
1 cup pineapple
1 cup blueberries
2 tbsp chia seeds

Instructions

Blend all the ingredients together until smooth. As you can see, consumption of a smoothie with the right balance of proteins, carbs and fats can do wonders to your body and in fact promote endurance and strength training.

But, with the busy lives we lead, we tend to miss out on such details. Therefore, make it a practice to make your meals and smoothies beforehand and store them in appropriate smoothie container to avoid the hassle of cutting time from your workouts to do so, and soon enough it will become a part of your daily regime!

Author:

Nora White is the digital marketing manager for SANS. She has been an advocate of a healthy lifestyle for over 2 decades and loves to keep herself updated with the latest in clean eating and green living. When not at work, you can find her at a hot yoga class or writing to educate and help her readers come one step closer to a healthier lifestyle. In her free time, she loves to travel with her husband and two boys, and hike with friends.