I had a theory that I wanted people’s opinion on. I’ve read in many places that you need to eat a ton in the 0-60 minutes after working out for the most absorbtion of nutrients and to minimize fat gain/maximize muscle gain. However, it takes like 20 minutes for food to digest, so would it be good to eat a lot before exercising so that lots of calories and protein are floating around in your blood already? I’ve heard you shouldn’t eat before exercising? Why? Does it cause fat gain?
Thanks!
Just eat a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and enough calories to never be hungry throughout the day. Spread that out through about 4meals and a few snacks. That’s all you really have to do.
Post workout is a good time to get a decent dose of simple carbs at least 30g of protein. Don’t stuff yourself after a workout, it won’t help any, just have a good meal with alot of carbs and protein while minimum fat. Also stay hydrated. But your diet consistency throughout the day is what really builds muscle, if you watch that, you’re made, the rest is supplementary.
You may want to check out some of the articles here that deal specifically with post workout nutrition.
There is a lot of discussion about timing and composition of pre and post workout nutrients.
The short answer, you want fast absorbing nutrition, such as Surge, and you can split it based on whichever pre and post strategy you follow.
[quote]mj1 wrote:
I had a theory that I wanted people’s opinion on. I’ve read in many places that you need to eat a ton in the 0-60 minutes after working out for the most absorbtion of nutrients and to minimize fat gain/maximize muscle gain. However, it takes like 20 minutes for food to digest, so would it be good to eat a lot before exercising so that lots of calories and protein are floating around in your blood already? I’ve heard you shouldn’t eat before exercising? Why? Does it cause fat gain?
Thanks![/quote]
The problem here would not be fat gain, but rather that you can’t train optimally with a full stomach.
Personally, I eat my last solid meal one or two hours (depending on the size) and have a P+C drink shortly before beginning. During training, I drink something along the lines of Gatorade, after training another P+C drink. When I get home I start eating P+C meals.