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Workout Nutrition to Fuel a Lean Strong Body

Pre-exercise nutrition needs.

What and when you eat before exercise can make a big difference to your performance and recovery. You not only want to fuel your workout but you need to have enough of the right types of food in your body to preserve muscle mass and speed recovery.

Strategy #1 - Protein before exercise.

Eating some lean protein, (dairy, meat, fish, chicken, protein powder) in the few hours before exercise:

Can help you maintain or even increase your muscle size. That’s important for anyone who wants to improve health, body composition, or performance.
Can reduce markers of muscle damage (myoglobin, creatine kinase, and myofibrillar protein degradation). Or at least prevent them from getting worse. (Carbohydrates or a placebo eaten before exercise don’t seem to do the same thing.) The less damage to your muscles, the faster you recover, and the better you adapt to your exercise over the long term.
Floods your bloodstream with amino acids just when your body needs them most. This boosts your muscle-building capabilities. So not only are you preventing damage, you’re increasing muscle size.

Strategy #2 – Carbs (fruits, veggies and healthy starches) before exercise.

Eating carbs before exercise:

Fuels your training and helps with recovery. It’s a popular misconception that you only need carbs if you’re engaging in a long (more than two hour) bout of endurance exercise. In reality, carbs can also enhance shorter term (one hour) high-intensity training. So unless you’re just going for a quiet stroll, ensuring that you have some carbs in your system will improve high intensity performance.
Preserves muscle and liver glycogen. This tells your brain that you are well fed, and helps increase muscle retention and growth.
Stimulates the release of insulin. When combined with protein, this improves protein synthesis and prevents protein breakdown. Another reason why a mixed meal is a great idea. No sugary carb drinks required.

Strategy #3 – Healthy Fats (olive oil, fish oil, avocado, nuts) before exercise:

Don’t appear to improve nor diminish sport performance. And they don’t seem to fuel performance — that’s what carbs are for.
Do help to slow digestion, which maintains blood glucose and insulin levels and keeps you on an even keel.
Provide some vitamins and minerals, and they’re important in everyone’s diet.

Pre-exercise nutrition in practice

If you work out late enough just eat a well-balanced meal 2-3 hours before exercise. If, however you are working out upon waking try these options that digest quickly:

A protein shake made with protein powder with some veggies and fruit and juts thrown and a low calorie milk or almond milk
Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts

During Exercise Nutrition Needs:

If you are only working out 30 – 120 minutes there is no need to fuel with anything but water and maybe an electrolyte drink, however if you are training for longer you will need to eat some protein and carbs during the workout to enhance performance. During-exercise nutrition needs.

For training that is longer than two hours, sports drinks can be a huge help. Every hour you’ll want to consume:

15 grams protein
30-45 grams carbs

This can come in the form of liquids, gels, or even some solid food.

Post-exercise Nutrition Needs.

Post-workout nutrition can help you recover, rehydrate, refuel, build muscle, and improve future performance.

Strategy #1 - Protein after exercise:

Eating protein after exercise prevents protein breakdown and stimulates synthesis, leading to increased or maintained muscle tissue. So it’s a great strategy for better recovery, adaptation, and performance.

Want fast and convenient? Make an awesome post-workout protein shake.
Want real food? Then make an awesome high-protein meal. Any high quality complete protein should do the job, as long as you eat enough. That means about 40-60 grams for men, and 20-30 grams for women.

Strategy #2 - Carbs after exercise:

Eating healthy carbs, (fruits, veggies and fiber rich starches) will restore our energy after a workout so while eating your protein throw some fruits and veggies into that shake OR add ½ cup brown rice and a veggie to that post workout meal.

Strategy #3 – Fats after Exercise:

Emerging research suggests that healthy fats eaten post exercise can actually increase the amount of available protein that we are eating. So use 2% milk in that protein shake and reduce the amount of milk OR drizzle some olive oil or add ¼ of an avocado to your meal.

Eating properly will keep you energized and create a lean fit body in no time!

Making Science Work In You

j01818
Mar 31, 2014
2 min read

Everyday new research hits the streets about your health, exercise, nutrition, supplements, herbs, sleep, etc. there are way too many to keep up with. I’ve dedicated my life to sorting through the info for you, and here it is… All roads lead to the FOUR pillars of health: exercise, nutrition, rest, and relaxation. Balance these four aspects of your life, and you too will have tons of energy, look fabulous, and feel even better than you look. You could even ward off most chronic diseases... Here is my magic formula for balancing these behaviors.

Exercise:

Perform cardiovascular exercise (CV) in the correct training zones 6 days a week aiming to burn 2000 calories a week in CV exercise.
Vary the amount of time from 30 minutes to 90 minutes.
Vary the mode to tone your legs in different areas.
Vary the intensity – easy/somewhat hard, 55 – 75% or max. heart rate 60 – 70% of the time, hard, 75 – 85% 20 – 25% or the time, very hard 1 day per week.
Strength train 2 – 3 days a week. Make sure you skip at lest 1 day between sessions. Train all the major muscles groups to fatigue or even failure (if you are extremely fit) in 12 – 20 repetitions. Look to increase the volume of the workload nearly every time you workout.
Stretch after any workout session CV or strength and set aside at minimum of 15 minutes twice a week (consider a yoga class)

Nutrition:

Follow my 6 eating tips and you cannot go wrong.

Eat 20 – 25 grams or fiber a day. Fiber is found in fruits, vegetables, whole grain products and legumes.
Eat protein throughout your day- Women need approx. 35 - 60 grams of protein per day, and Men need approx. 60 - 90 grams of protein per day
Eradicate or limit sugar, especially early in your day
Drink 1/ 2 your body weight in water per day.
Try to eat 4-7 smaller meals per day (eat about every 3-4 hours)
Eat your first meal within 30 mins of waking (eat the majority of your daily calories before 3pm), and eat within 30 mins of working out

Rest: Research shows you need a minimum of 7 hours of REM sleep to fully refuel, refresh and replenish your body. So sleep 7 hours a night plain and simple. If you cannot get that many in every night you can “catch up” by sleeping extra on the weekends.

Relaxation: My favorite part of a fabulous life. Totally remove yourself from your everyday life as often as you can. You can do this by reading a novel, going to a movie or play, taking a walk NOT thinking of your day, going to another part of the world, or meditating.

Master these 4 areas of your life, and make science work in you!

-Julie Luther

#weightloss #howtostrengthtrain #fatloss #breakingplateaus #eatingright #healthynutrition