You read in all the magazines conflicting guidelines for what to eat post-workout, well I found a great article that breaks down for you what a guy looking to gain muscle mass should eat. For a hardgainer a post-workout meal can be you most important of the day to pack on the pounds. Here’s parts of a great article by John Blackwood at Weight Gainer Network.
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The very first thing that you’ll want to consider is the calorie and macronutrient make-up of that post workout meal. This refers to how much energy you’re supplying your body and what mix of nutrients.
This is going to vary slightly depending on your current body weight, how quickly you want to build muscle, how high your daily calorie intake is, and how long your workout session is.
The longer the workout, the faster you want to gain weight, and the higher your daily calorie requirement is, the more food you’ll want to consume.
For most guys who are training intensely, anywhere from 400-600 calories tends to work well. Keep in mind that about an hour after your post-workout meal, you’ll want to follow it with another solid meal to really consolidate the nutritional process during this post-workout period.
For the first post-workout meal, you want to aim for high protein, high carb selections. Avoid fat at all costs. Fat during this time is only going to slow the delivery of the nutrients into the muscle cells and is certainly not what you want.
On average you should be taking anywhere from 30-50 grams of protein and then the remainder should come from carbs. This will work out to around 50-100 grams depending on your total calorie requirement of that meal.
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Stan here, for the first meal I typically have a good post-workout shake within 15 minutes of my workout. Then about an hour after I have a full meal. The shake allows me to absorb the nutrients fast.
If you aren’t used to eating this much after a workout, have a minimum the shake, and then work in the second meal slowly. Your body will adapt and finally will start craving it.
Back to the article.
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Smart Post Workout Food Choices
Looking at the food choices that should make up your post-workout meal, choose a fast digesting protein along with a fast digesting carb.
While the goal throughout the day is to keep blood sugar levels stable, immediately after your workout you actually want to spike your blood sugar levels up.
Why?
Simply because by doing so, you’ll create a high release of the hormone insulin, which will drive both the amino acids and glucose straight into the muscle cells. This is an ideal situation for muscle growth.
So smart food choices would include whey isolate protein powder, white fish, or egg whites for protein. Smart carb choices would include foods such as white bread, white bagels, sugary cereals, dextrose, or maltodextrin.
Some people often use fruit for their post-workout meal and while this will contain some simple sugars, it also contains fructose which won’t go into the muscle cells. So all in all it’s not most ideal. The best case scenario is 100% pure glucose since that is what will re-saturate muscle glycogen levels the fastest.
Most guys do find that using a protein/carb shake works slightly better for their post-workout meal as opposed to whole food sources, so they’ll choose to combine whey protein powder with a powdered form of carb such as dextrose, waxy maize, or maltodextrin. If you can’t get a hold of those, Gatorade powder will also work great.
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Like I said, try out a good protein powder. This is my favorite protein powder.
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Post-Workout Meal Timing
Now we must talk about timing. Some guys do get very caught up in thinking that if they don’t consume their post-workout shake within 2 seconds of being out of the gym, they’re going to really hinder their results.
While timing is definitely important, there’s no need to take it to this extreme. Generally speaking, the sooner you can get that shake in the better. But, if you need to have a quick 5-minute shower first, that’s fine.
As long as you get your post-workout meal in within 15-30 minutes, you’ll be on top of the game. Don’t stress yourself out over this as that stress is likely to cause more harm than the delayed interval of the meal.
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This was definitely a great article and I always follow these guidelines. As a hardgainer who was struggling to gain weight, just following these tips alone helped me start adding weight. If you have additional tips feel free to leave me a comment on my Facebook page.
Stan
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