Get The Most from Your Workouts By Fueling Right | Foodily Blog

When you eat a rich, sugary cupcake the size of your head, you don?t suddenly get fatter.

Likewise, you can eat nothing but salad for a whole day, and it?s hardly reflected in the mirror or on the scale.

Indeed, part of what makes eating healthy so hard for many people is that the results from doing so aren?t immediately apparent. They wonder, ?Is this really doing anything?? Of course, it?s only after several days (or weeks) that the effects start to accumulate and that you notice the impact of the foods you eat on the way you look and feel.

But if you?re an active person, choosing the right foods to fuel your workouts is a much more immediate concern.

Fail to get the right mix of nutrients in your body just after a workout and your recovery suffers, leaving you sluggish when it?s time to get back out there the next day to do it all again. Make a nutrition mistake before or during a workout, and not only will your performance suffer, the results can be downright dangerous.
Break out of the Gatorade rut
When most people think about workout nutrition, they think Gatorade, Powerade, or some other neon-colored, processed water-sugar-electrolyte mixture. But there are way more options than commercial sports drinks, including many whole food recipes you can make at home.

For foodies who happen to be athletes, the discovery that you can make your own workout food ? which you can tune to your needs and which tastes far better than high-fructose commercial junk, ? is a life-changer. Some excellent exercise foods you can make on your own include homemade sports drinks from natural ingredients like coconut water and citrus, energy gels made from honey, agave nectar, or dates, and even recovery puddings, often with soft bananas as the base.
How to eat around your workouts
Follow these simple guidelines when deciding what meals to make for before, during, and after your workouts, to maximize your performance and ensure you?re getting what your body needs to jumpstart the recovery process.

Pre-workout:

• In addition to your normal daily meals, aim to get 100-150 calories about 20 minutes before the start of your workout
• Shoot for a 3-to-1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein, which maximizes what your body is able to absorb
• If you?re skipping the commercial sports drinks and gels, be sure to get electrolytes in your pre-workout meal by including salt or coconut water

During workout:

• Take in 4 to 6 ounces of water every 10 to 20 minutes during exercise
• For every 16 ounces you drink, include 500 mg of sodium
• Go for 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight per hour

Post-workout:

• It is crucial for recovery that you start refueling within the first hour after your workout, ideally even sooner
• Aim for a 4-to-1 or 5-to-1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein, with about 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight
• Eat a higher-protein meal an hour or two later

Above all else, listen to your body. While I won?t recommend giving into that cupcake craving, if your body is asking for something when you?re working out, it?s probably because it needs it. This is why you?ll often find yourself craving salt and carbohydrates at the end of a tough workout, and you shouldn?t feel guilty about indulging that craving.

Matt Frazier is a vegan marathoner and ultramarathoner. He writes the blog No Meat Athlete, where he shares training tips, vegetarian recipes for athletes, and a series of posts on eating for workouts.

Food, we love you.

Source: http://blog.foodily.com/2011/05/20/get-the-most-from-your-workouts-by-fueling-right/

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