What to Eat Before Workout and After Workout

Food for Workout: Gain Good Muscle, Lose Bad Bulge

Workouts, fitness, living healthy are topics of my passion along with technology and I live by them.

“I regularly workout in the gym, but neither my weight seems to decrease nor am I gaining muscles in proportion to my workout. What am I doing wrong? What should I eat?”

What should I eat, this topic keeps cropping up and what people ask me about quite frequently is

what should one eat if they have been regularly working out in the Gym. This is in continuation to the many studies, which state percentages for a healthy and strong muscular body, one needs proper diet and sleep, which contribute about 65%-75% and intense workout adds just 35%-25%.  Other mistake, which these Gym goers make, is the misconception of stuffing themselves with heavy proteins and leaving out the other two very important macronutrients, Carbohydrates and Fats.

Post reading my blogpost on Balanced Diet - Part 2, where I briefly touched upon this topic, many came back asking for more details on Pre and Post Workout Foods. So, let me share my views on this.

I repeat again that this is a generalist suggestion and needs to be customised for each individual and secondly, I am no certified expert on this subject, but have proven results of my suggested diet plans.

Pre-Workout Diet:

What Should One Eat Before an Intense Workout for Weight Loss, that is to lose excess fat, which is lose inches and gain muscle mass.

I am a firm believer and follower of all three macronutrients, but the quantity of intake varies from person to person and type of workout one is planning for that day. On general terms, I suggest before undertaking weight training, carbohydrates will help increase your strength to endure rigorous exercises and help you perform better and also assist in effective weight loss, burn fat and muscle gain. This is because Carbohydrates helps you with the necessary energy, which we call as stamina, required before a strenuous weight-training workout.

Healthy diet and exercise routine work together to produce effective gain in stamina, muscle strength

and weight loss results. This is because our body withstands tiring workout sessions at the gym and uses up loads of energy, which needs to be replenished by these macronutrients and help regain lost energy. A wholesome diet plan, which I recommend is basis the physical activities you wish to indulge in. If you are into an intense fitness or weight-training regime, it is more important to be careful with your type of food intake. A healthy diet boosts your weight loss goal while a not-so-healthy diet may affect it adversely. While working on your diet plan, it is important to know what you eat before you exercise that will prepare your body for the upcoming burnout at the gym.

Important point to note here is that you need to identify and eat carbohydrate-rich foods that are low in fat and low or moderate in protein. Please make sure you have enough muscle glycogen as fuel for your physical activity. The Fat rich Carbohydrates have an adverse effect, like make you feel lethargic, heavy and in general low on energy. Muscles would feel tired and this would lead to increase in heart rate while trying to do intense workouts.

Few tips I can recommend here; eat your carbohydrate-rich meal along with lesser percentage of Proteins, at least 60-90 minutes before you start exercising. You may consume the following carbohydrate-dense foods that are ideal for a pre-workout meal but in moderate quantity:

• Banana
• Boiled Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• Quinoa
• Roti - Ragi, Jowar, Wheat
• Low-fat granola bars
• Fig bars
• Peanut butter sandwich (Toast)
• Yogurt
• Pasta
• Milk
• Cheese
• Cottage Cheese
• Salads
• Dalia (Cracked Wheat)

For the morning workout regime, I advise not to start off on an empty stomach as you are already fasting the whole night before. Many feel that exercising on an empty stomach may burn fat, that’s just an temporary feeling, but very harmful in the long run, because muscles, which needs fuel, is starved, leading to fatigue in muscles, and development of Lactic Acid in your muscle joints and cramps, which further leads you not being able to exercise at your full performance.

I suggest following food items before exercising early in the morning, but in less quantity and about an hour before you hit the gym.

• Eggs - Boiled or Half Boiled sprinkled with salt and pepper
• Cereal and milk
• Peanut butter sandwich (Toast)
• Banana or any other Fruit with high carb content
• Paratha (less oily)
• Boiled Potato
• Poha
• Idli
• Dalia (Cracked Wheat)

Another very important thing to remember is to keep your body hydrated with lots of water.

Post-Workout Diet:

What You Should Eat After an Intense Workout.

Post intense workout, is a very important phase when our muscles have worked and our body has helped in supplying the essential fuels to these muscles. We now need to replenish with the right type of essential nutrients and this would again vary for each person. In reference to above regime of weight lose, muscle gain i.e. burning of visceral fat & subcutaneous fat and gaining of muscle mass. First and foremost, rest by sitting, stabilizing your resting heart rate, allow muscles to cool down and then please do proper stretching of the whole body and not just the muscle part you have worked out. This will help release of lactic acid, which gets developed in the muscles when we work out. Also stretching of muscles and joints helps release tension in muscles, specially the joints, helping reduce soreness and muscle fatigue, which sets in after about 15 hours of workout. Please hydrate yourself by sipping (not gulping) water constantly.

Now this is the time when you need to reduce the Carbohydrate intake and increase your Proteins, but what I recommend is post workout and cool down, have one or two Bananas or boiled Potato or Sweet Potato, it helps regain your stamina and before you take proteins, because absorption and breakdown (digestion) of proteins takes longer time and before that we need to supply our muscles with necessary energy. Proteins will essentially help in repairing the muscles and fibers.

Post shower, when your body temperature has been regulated to normal along with your heart rate, I recommend indulging in light proteins like;

• Soy - Soy Milk or Boiled Soy Beans or Soy Nuggets
• Milk
• Yogurt
• Sweet Potato
• Peanuts (unsalted) & Gram (Chana)
• Fruits like Cheeku (Mud apple), Avocado, Berries
• Eggs
• Dates & Nuts like Almonds, Peanuts, Macadamias, Hazelnuts, Pecans & Cashew nut, Fig, and Apricots.

After about 45 min, one can have a proper meal, which should have more of proteins compared to other macronutrients. The ratio that I suggest is 3:2:1 of Proteins : Fat : Carbohydrates. Now when I say Fat, I refer to Healthy or Good Fats; the Monounsaturated Fats and Polyunsaturated Fats and Omega-3s like Cheese, Pure Ghee, Dark Chocolates, Oily Fish, Olive Oil, Sunflower Oil, etc. These fats help in providing energy, absorbing of Vitamins, which helps in protection and proper functioning of our brain, heart and elasticity of skin besides glowing.

Ideal foods post work out that I can recommend are:

• Chicken
• Cheese
• Eggs
• Fish like Salmon, Tuna
• Cottage Cheese
• Milk with cream
• Roti
• Paratha
• Vegetables
• Quinoa
• Soup
• Yogurt
• Lentils and Daals

Please note that along with these macronutrients, one should also have an adequate amount of all Vitamins for healthy being. Vitamins play a vital role in muscle repair, development, and proper functioning of joints, ligaments etc.

Please keep yourself hydrated by drinking lots of water.

Before I conclude, I wish to share that one of the important ingredients to burn our food and provide energy is Oxygen. Unfortunately, as we grow older, we start to breath not just wrong but also inadequately. Example, to avoid our stomach from protruding out, we don’t breathe from our diaphragm and instead from our chest. Add to this damage, we don’t inhale to our lungs full capacity, which means we are inhaling less oxygen, leading to providing inadequate fuel to our body to burn the food we ingested. This leads to slowing our digestion process and food staying longer in our body... one of the reasons of gaining weight and inches.

In the end I shall say; Eat Healthy, Workout Regularly, Drink more Water and Breathe Slowly & to Lung Capacity.

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