The Post Workout Meal
Post workout protein is critical. It’s a good idea to use a protein powder following a workout, as it will be available for your muscles quickly. If you’d rather eat post-workout, that’s fine too. A good whole food meal with quality protein will still serve you quite well. I’ve even waited as long as 2 hours to eat my post-workout meal with no repercussions.
Keep the same ratio of protein to carbs as you did in the pre-workout meal. While this might not be the ideal ratio for everybody, it’s a good place to start. If you’re trying to put on some serious mass, the post workout meal is the one to go BIG on. Keeping the majority of your carbs in this time frame will insure that your muscles replenish and begin the growing process. In my opinion, the post workout meal is the most important meal of the day.
The “30 minute anabolic window” is a bit over-hyped, in my opinion. There is a window of time that is important to consume adequate nutrition, but it’s closer to 4 hours than 30 mins. There are some unique fat metabolism mechanisms that happen if you continue to fast a short while after your workout. These will mostly be available to those who also train fasted. If you don’t find yourself hungry after working out, don’t choke down a meal or shake. Just wait. When you become hungry, eat. You won’t be missing out on any gains. It’s important to listen to your body and figure out what it prefers. The more in-tune you become with your body the better you’ll be able to adapt your training and nutrition to get the results you desire.
The above strategies work well and allow for some individualization. The program that you stick to 100% of the time will be better than the perfect program you stick to only 50% of the time. Figure out what works best for you and stick with it, or let us build the perfect diet plan for you.
