What Should One Eat After Sports?

what-should-one-eat-after-sports

Whether you want to lose weight or build muscle: The food after sport you should not fail. Which foods are suitable – and what you should avoid better.

You want to lose weight and that’s why you would rather eat nothing after the sport? You plaster a large portion of poultry after sports because you want to build muscle? There are a few myths about proper nutrition after exercise. What you should eat actually depends on what training goal you are following – losing weight or gaining muscle? But one thing applies to both goals: After training, you should definitely eat something – why, you will find out here. 

 

Am I ruining my training success if I eat afterwards?

But on the contrary! Your body loses a lot of energy through the efforts of the sport and wants to replenish the glycogen storage. Most experts advise to eat after sport within a time window of about 30 minutes.

 

What is glycogen?

Glycogen is a store of glucose (glucose) in the body. Glycogen can be stored in various tissues, such as the liver or muscles. When the glycogen reserves are exhausted, the body accesses the fat reserves. 

 

Eat properly after training

An optimal post-workout meal looks different for an endurance athlete than for a strength athlete. 

 

After the endurance sport

In endurance sports, the glycogen storage is emptied, so endurance athletes need more carbohydrates (but should not neglect proteins). If you eat nothing, glucose is lacking as a source of energy, and your body not only gets rid of the fats, but also the proteins from the muscles! And muscle loss is certainly not the desired result for endurance athletes. So instead of eating anything after training, you should definitely refill your energy store. As a guide: A woman should take 0.5 grams and a man 0.7 grams of their own body weight of carbohydrates.

Suitable foods after endurance sports :

  • sweet potatoes
  • potatoes
  • brown rice
  • noodles
  • lenses
  • porridge
  • Whole grain bread
  • quinoa
  • Fruits (eg bananas)

For you, if you want to lose weight, it’s important that you burn more calories than you eat. The German Society for Nutrition (DGE) recommends as a guide a daily energy intake of 2300 kcal for men and 1800 kcal for women aged 25-50 years and low physical activity, eg. B. in exclusively sedentary job activity. The values ​​increase to 2400 kcal (women) and 3000 kcal (men) in a predominantly walking or standing activity. You can find even more information here: Nutrition and sports – how do I do it right?

After weight training

Amino acids are vital to us. They are basic building blocks of proteins and are used, among other things, to build body tissue. So that the body can build up new muscle fibers, it produces from the protein that we gain from the food, the body’s own protein. Strength athletes do not irritate the glycogen storage as much as endurance athletes, so after strength training, they primarily need proteins and no carbohydrates. And: protein also helps in the regeneration of the muscles ! Training results in small tears in the muscles that the body has to repair after exercising.

Suitable foods after weight training:

  • Turkey or chicken breast
  • beef
  • salmon
  • eggs
  • lowfat quark
  • Greek yogurt
  • legumes
  • nuts

 

You should avoid that: the no-gos

Leave a bottle of water at home, but a little chocolate after sports? Think about it again …

Drink too little

Your body loses a lot of fluid through sweating during training. To avoid dehydration , you should drink water during and after training to replenish your mineral balance. So: do not forget to drink ?!

Consume light products

Light products make us think of something healthy and reduced in calories. Although “Light” must meet the legal requirement that it contains 30 percent less sugar or fat than comparable products, this does not necessarily say anything about the calorie content – not to mention which additives are still included! For example, if fat is missing as a flavor carrier, more sugar is often added to these products ! In the case of products with sugar substitutes such as aspartame, it is suggested to the body that it receives a carbohydrate intake, but does not receive it: cravings are the result and we eat more.

Sweets after training

Warm up exercises , training and cooldown successfully completed – now some tasty gummy bears as a reward? Better not! Sweets contain a lot of calories and unfortunately no significant nutrients or any other added value. The simple sweetener made of sweets raises your blood sugar, provides only short energy, falls again and can even fall below its initial value. Keep your fingers off ??!