Eating after a work out?

Joe84 said:

Bear, I have to disagree with you about the complex carbs. Straight after (yeah - straight after - no waiting around) training you want a meal consisting of 75-100 grams of high GI (simple) carbs and around 30-50 grams of complete protein, and as little fat as possible (not even essential fats). Creatine is optional. This will give you a meal of between 420 and 600 calories. This may be too much for you (for example if you're cutting, splitting 1800 calories a day into 6 meals = 300 calories per meal) or too little (for example if you're bulking, splitting 3600 calories a day into 6 meals = 600 calories per meal), but stay within these guidlines anyway - it makes the best recovery meal.

Yes, the simple carbs will cause an insulin spike, but that is exactly what you want. Remember that insulin is an anabolic hormone. It will "force feed" the protein (and creatine) into your muscles, helping them repair (and therefore recover) faster. It also means that the post-workout meal can feel (psychologically) like a "cheat meal", making it easier to stay on your diet the rest of the time.

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You are absolutely correct that postworkout you need to replenish muscle glycogen stores with a hi GI simple carbohydrate. It's all about timed nutrition. I myself use a 50/50 ratio of Dextrose and Maltodextrin. While the amounts one needs obviously varies from person to person, I believe it a a 1:3 ratio of Carbs to Protein and you'd want to supplement .7-1g of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight. This would mean a 200lb person would want to ingest 100g of simple carbohydrate (dextrose/Maltodextrin) being best, because of it rapid digestion, causing glucose uptake into the muscle cells within the window of opportunity. I have been doing this for over 3years, and the diference it's made is amazing. Yes Bear you are correct in that in the presence of Insulin lyposis is not possible, but there are better times to fat burning techniques other than this very beneficial time to attemp to stop cortizol, and the process of catabolism, while trying to stimulate recuperation and anabolism. There are also many glucose partitioning agents being sold on the market today to help aid in shuttling all those carbs into muscle cells. Again the key is timing and if your training hard, your body will not store these nutrients as fat. Taken at any other time of the day, yes your body will be in storing mode.

A big glass of chocolate milk is the best, perfect carb to protien ratio.

jeffderuyter21 said:

A big glass of chocolate milk is the best, perfect carb to protien ratio.

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I hope your joking bro, this could really be misleading to people.

Another consideration is time of day! Is it early in the a.m. or 9 p.m.?
Do we need/want a big meal then? If it is after 7'ish perhaps a light snack, a salad or fruit? Is it breakfast, lunch or supper time? Or is it just about bedtime ? Always consider this...........And have a great day, God Bless, J

is fat free food good for you?

Beth what fat free food are you talking about? If it's all the processed foods companies try to market as fat free but increase the amount of sugar in them, then no way, stay away from these products.

What you eat after a workout really does matter what your goals are.