Immediately after training, you need to eat food within 20-30 minutes. Post-workout nutrition plays an important role in restoring strength and energy. You can drink a protein shake and eat fast or slow carbohydrates, now take it simple carbohydrates allowed. It is advisable to avoid fats after sports activities in the next hour.

During this period, the protein-carbohydrate window opens and it is important to enrich the body with reserves nutrients, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates in sufficient quantities for the anabolic processes in the body to function properly for active muscle growth.

The role of carbohydrates after exercise

Carbohydrates provide the body with energy. During the period after training, a deficit of carbohydrate reserves forms in the body and muscle tissue begins to break down under the influence of catabolic processes. It is advisable to eat fast carbohydrates. It is necessary to increase insulin levels for the normal course of anabolic and anti-catabolic processes.

Depending on the intensity of your activities and weight, the norm is 60-100 carbohydrates.

Foods containing carbohydrates

• Buckwheat
• Pearl barley
• Oatmeal
• Durum pasta
• Bread, bran
• Bananas
• Fresh juice
• Honey (small amount)

The role of protein after exercise

A protein shake is best for muscle recovery after exercise. Add 5-10 grams of BCAA supplement to your post-workout diet. BCAA contains 3 essential amino acids that are very beneficial for muscle fibers. Protein synthesis in muscles increases 3 times if you consume protein foods for the first time 20-30 minutes after the gym.

Foods containing proteins

• Chicken fillet
• Turkey fillet
• Egg whites (boiled or scrambled)
• Seafood
• Cottage cheese 0.5% fat
• Lean meat
• Protein dishes

Post-workout menu options

1. Buckwheat with fish, salad with herbs and green tea.
2. Rice with chicken fillet, cucumber, tomato, onion, compote.
3. Barley porridge with lean meat, radishes, carrots, vegetable or fruit juice.
4. Pilaf, fresh vegetables, jelly.
5. Durum pasta with chicken, 1 apple, green tea with lemon.
6. Cottage cheese 0.5% with sour cream 5%, oatmeal cookies with milk 0.5% fat.

Immediately after all physical exercise:

• Creatine – for him best time for absorption - after the gym. The norm is 3 grams to restore all processes.
• Water – up to 900 ml to restore balance in the body.
• BCAA (BCAA) - approximately 3-10 grams to protect muscles from destruction (catabolism) and enhance the anabolic process.
• Glutamine – approximately 3-5 grams, is involved in the synthesis of muscle proteins, a source of energy, strengthens the immune system, and helps recover after physical activity.

In 20-30 minutes (we will secure the information)

• Carbohydrates – 50-90 grams, preferably complex ones.
• Proteins – 20-30 grams, animal origin or protein shakes.

Additional tips:

• Sleep - take a 1 hour nap after the gym, only to benefit the recovery processes in the body.
• At the end of the main workout, do a cool-down to calm your body.
• Massage – improves muscle tone and blood circulation, improves mood.

Recovery after exercise

Recovery plays an important role in the growth of muscle fibers. You need to rest for 24-48 hours after another workout. If you neglect this time and go to work out earlier, this will lead to the destruction of muscle fibers, because they will not have time to fully recover. If you want quality muscles, then rest well.

1. Take a cool bath. Scientists have concluded that a cool bath and a contrast shower after physical activity reduce muscle pain and the body recovers better. Blood vessels due to the temperature difference, they contract and expand, while the waste in the tissues is washed out.
2. Avoid overtraining. Constant overload in the gym or in any other training sometimes only leads to injuries and poor results. This is because the muscles do not have time to recover and cannot progress. Do it once every 2 months for a week with -50% loads. This will allow the body to rest and recuperate properly. If you are over 25 years old and you are not going to sacrifice your health for the sake of medals, then train at 80-90% of your maximum. After all, our body is like the engine of a car, if it is constantly overloaded, then sooner or later it will “overheat” and break down. Therefore, train for many years and do not push a little, this way you will maintain the health of your bones, joints and the body as a whole.

3 day program for muscle growth

When developing a training plan, it is necessary to divide muscle groups into different days and you don’t need to train the same muscle group 2 times a week. 1 day is enough for a good, hard, strength training.

An approximate training system for muscle growth and maintaining shape, 3 times a week.

• Day 1 – pectoral muscles, cardio exercises (exercise bike).
• Day 2 – back, biceps, legs, abs, cardio exercises (exercise bike).
• Day 3 – shoulders, triceps, cardio exercises (exercise bike).

Perform 2-3 exercises for each muscle group and 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions. Rest between sets for 2-5 minutes, depending on the intensity of the workout and your goals.

Take care of your health, eat well after training, and your physical shape will be super.

I must tell you that proper nutrition during training is 70% of success in bodybuilding. You work hard, try to build muscle or lose fat, but if you don't get the right nutrients, then all your efforts are in vain. Therefore, I advise you to study this article several times, sort everything out and understand for yourself that if you tried hard in the gym, then the strained muscles, of course, will begin to change. The question is that if you gave them the nutrition from outside and what they needed, then everything is fine. And if they didn’t give food, then they will take it from internal organs or from those muscles that did not work during this workout. This is such simple arithmetic. The pre-workout meal should contain carbohydrates, proteins, and the fat content should be limited (preferably no more than 3-5 grams).
You should eat before starting the training process no later than 2 hours before it starts. It is known that physical activity slows down and even stops digestion, so go on an empty stomach. In addition, a full stomach will interfere with the full performance of exercises, and problems such as acid reflux, nausea and decreased stamina may arise.
Eating carbohydrates before your workout will provide you with energy. The proteins taken will be used by the body as sources of amino acids for working muscles, creating the so-called anabolic “prerequisite”. Pre-workout meals should be fat-free because fat in food slows down the absorption of other nutrients. Fatty foods stay in the stomach longer, and for this reason can cause discomfort, lethargy, colic, nausea and belching.

Pre-workout foods
Below are examples that combine protein and carbohydrate foods; you can alternate these options depending on your taste preferences:

• Poultry meat (turkey, chicken breasts) with coarse bread or rice or pasta
• Lean fish and potatoes
• Lean meat with potatoes or pasta
• Eggs with porridge
• Cottage cheese with bread

The amount of food eaten should be small, like an average breakfast. If you do not feel a feeling of heaviness and fullness in your stomach at the start of the workout, then the amount of food was normal. Pre-workout meals should include approximately 20 g of protein and 40-60 g of complex carbohydrates.

Pre-workout protein
A protein shake is absorbed much faster than regular food. Therefore, a portion of whey protein an hour before training will be just right. By the start of exercise, the amino acids that muscles require will begin to actively enter the bloodstream.

Pre-workout nutrition for weight loss.

T same as when typing muscle mass, you need to eat food before training no later than 2 hours before it starts, while the amount of carbohydrates is reduced to 15-20 g, and the amount of protein to 10-15 g. Take only complex carbohydrates (vegetables, cereals, wholemeal bread, pasta made from flour coarse, etc.). If you don't eat before you start training, you won't be able to achieve high level intensity, since the body will not be able to produce required quantity energy.
If you eat a large amount of food or eat immediately before training, then during it you will spend mainly food energy, rather than fat reserves.

Post-workout nutrition

About an hour after training, you need to eat a meal rich in protein and carbohydrates. This is the only time when it is allowed to include relatively high carbohydrates in the diet. glycemic index, that is, fast carbohydrates.
During this period of time, the so-called post-workout, anabolic or protein-carbohydrate window is open in the body. For this reason, post-workout nutrition is primarily for muscle recovery and energy replenishment.
Carbohydrates after exercise
Post-workout carbohydrates are best consumed in readily available form from simple, high-glycemic sources. You need to achieve a rise in insulin levels - this hormone has anti-catabolic properties. Carbohydrates are needed to replenish expended energy, and if the body does not receive enough of them, then the destruction of muscle tissue begins under the influence of catabolic processes.
The required amount of carbohydrates is approximately 60-100 g.
Carbohydrate foods

• Buckwheat (buckwheat porridge);
• Pearl barley (pearl porridge);
• Millet groats (millet porridge);
• Oatmeal (oatmeal);
• White rice;
• Pasta (from durum wheat);
• Bread (bran);
• Honey (in small quantities);
• Bananas;
• Juice (preferably fresh).

Protein after workout

It is advisable to drink a protein shake immediately after training. This way, you can increase the rate of muscle protein synthesis by at least three times (compared to not eating after a workout). Proteins also help increase the secretion of somatotropin and have a pronounced restorative effect on muscle tissue.
The required amount of protein is approximately 20-30 g.
Protein products

• Protein dishes (recipes)
• Bird
• Lean meat
• Eggs – boiled or scrambled
• Fish – low-fat
• Cottage cheese

Post-workout nutrition for weight loss

If your goal is to reduce fat mass, then your nutrition tactics change - you should limit yourself to protein only. Carbohydrates in any form should be excluded from post-workout nutrition. This is due to the fact that carbohydrates provide energy, which eliminates the need to burn subcutaneous fat. After performing physical activity, there is a large amount of fat molecules in the blood that have been released from fat cells, while at the same time, activated metabolic processes are still for a long time can destroy these free fats. Carbohydrates taken immediately after training will force your body to return all free fats to tissues and begin to use food energy.

To create a complete nutrition plan tailored specifically for you, you may need months of studying special literature and experimenting. Shortcut– consultation with a specialist. Let me tell you a secret, the so-called nutritionist is not such a specialist. It would be wiser to turn not to an armchair theorist, but to a person with practical experience. A personal trainer with his own competitive experience or an active bodybuilder who knows about “cutting” has first-hand knowledge of biochemistry and nutritional science much better than certified nutritionists with a paunch and shortness of breath.

To achieve significant results when training to lose weight, you must not only exercise regularly physical exercise, but also eat right before and after classes. If you do not pay due attention to this, then you can violate the fundamental condition for losing weight, which is that the number of calories expended per day should be greater than those consumed. No less important is the energy value of food - the balance of carbohydrates, fats, proteins.

Reducing calories by fasting will not have a long-term effect. A lack of calories necessary for normal maintenance of life will lead to restructuring of the body. To balance metabolic processes, it will stop breaking down fat cells and will begin to store fat even from the minimum amount of food consumed.

People who are chronically undernourished are unable to lose fat due to:

• slow metabolism due to “storage” of fat;
• low muscle mass, which is not enough for fat burning.

Of course, you don’t have to pay much attention to your nutrition if you burn more calories than you consume. But if you approach the issue more responsibly, the effect will exceed all expectations.

Nutrition before and after training is affected by:

1. class time;
2. type of exercise - aerobic or strength.

The most fat is burned during a morning workout on an empty stomach, when glycogen stores are at a minimum, and the energy necessary for exercise is released from the fat depot.

If it is impossible to exercise on an empty stomach due to attacks of dizziness or for some other reason, you need to have something to eat half an hour or forty minutes before training. It should be light food, for example, bread with tea, banana with coffee. People exercising during the day or evening should pay attention to the last meal.

Properly selected food should contribute to:

• reducing muscle glycogen depletion;
• reducing the level of protein breakdown;
• decrease in cortisol concentration.

The correct ratio of protein and carbohydrates allows you to achieve this.

An hour or an hour and a half before playing sports, it is recommended to consume complex carbohydrates - rice, oatmeal, pasta, which allow you to get a supply of energy for a long time. When you can’t eat a hearty meal, and your strength is almost running out, thirty minutes before class you need a source of fast carbohydrates - dried fruits or coffee and a banana, which will provide strength and energy for a good and intense workout in a short time.

Fats in food consumed 60-90 minutes before exercise should be kept to a minimum. Carbohydrates and muscle-building proteins should predominate. In the morning you can drink a smoothie or milk, have a snack with an apple, banana, almonds. Caffeine, which promotes the release of fat cells, will help you cheer up. The main thing is not to overdo it with protein. Excess of it can cause drowsiness.

There are two approaches to nutrition after exercise. The first involves eating food within 30 minutes, and the second involves waiting two hours. And to understand which one is more suitable for those who want to lose weight, you need to understand the characteristics of each.

Maintaining a two-hour pause

The fat burning process continues even after completing the workout, ending only after a couple of hours. And if you limit yourself exclusively to water, you can say goodbye to extra pounds. This approach also has a drawback. Along with fats, muscle tissue can also be lost.

Eating food does not allow this, allowing the body to recover and not lose fat and muscle mass along with it. Preference is given to protein foods with a small amount of fat and carbohydrates, which contributes to:

• reducing cortisol;
• supplying glycogen used up during training;
• relieving fatigue and muscle tension;
• delivery of protein to restore muscle tissue.

To achieve this, you need to eat within 30-60 minutes. In this case, the number of calories should be no more than half of those expended during training. Only those people for whom muscle mass does not matter at all can give up food completely.

Eating in the first half hour

Important for those who want to not only burn fat, but also have well-developed muscles. Energy value food is calculated in a ratio of 60 to 40. After aerobics, this is a menu consisting of 60% carbohydrates and 40% protein, and after strength training - vice versa. If both types of loads are performed in one session, preference is given to the nutrition of the second option (60% protein and 40% carbohydrates).

Prohibited products include:

Caffeine

It interferes with the absorption of protein and glycogen overload, which negatively affects the recovery of the body. Cocoa, coffee, tea, chocolate and other products containing it should be completely excluded from the diet in the first two hours after training.

Fats

Reduce the rate of carbohydrates and proteins entering the blood. It is necessary to carefully monitor the fat content of protein foods that are included in the post-workout menu. You can’t eat fatty cottage cheese (5%), milk isolate (2.5%).

After your workout, you can drink a whey protein shake. Liquid food is well absorbed and digested. Those working out in the gym can have a snack at home. If preference is given to more glycemic foods, fish, potatoes with herbs, or chicken with rice are suitable. You can always drink the right ratio of protein and some source of carbohydrate.

An excellent option would be toasted olive oil salmon or other red sea ​​fish. The fillet is rubbed lemon juice, basil, garlic, pepper and salt, leave for a quarter of an hour, and then fry until it is browned, served with lemon wedges.

Many people are afraid to eat after going to the gym, believing that this contributes to weight gain. In fact, if you count calories, the kilograms will not come back.

Video review

Can you eat carbohydrates after a workout?

I dispel myths, talk about the results of a five-month low-carb diet (I'm still alive!), and share nutritional secrets.

What, when and how to use. This is important for an effective workout and for recovery after. There is a lot on this topic different materials on the Internet, often contradicting each other and common sense. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.

I’ll start with my “low-carb” experiment, which has been going on for more than five months. He allowed us to debunk a number of myths, including those regarding nutrition before and after training.

The experiment continues

During my many years of training practice, I tried different things in the field of nutrition and managed to break more than one rule for myself. Starting with the famous " protein-carbohydrate window”and ending with the need to eat something quickly digestible carbohydrate shortly before training in order to effectively work in the gym.

Especially many of these canons have been broken in the last five months. Just after I started experimenting with a low-carb diet:

I still adhere to the same principles of nutrition with some variations, because it’s simply convenient. You don’t worry about not eating on time, and the number of meals itself has decreased from 5–6 to four, and sometimes even three per day.

How I started low-carb (left) and what I achieved in three weeks (right) - minus 6.5 kg of which 4 liters of water

All this without a fierce feeling of hunger and any kind of food suffering. If you want something sweet, during the work week it’s dark chocolate (70% cocoa and above). Not much, 30–40 g per day. On weekends I relax - I eat anything and in any quantity. True, this is not a round-the-clock gluttony, but a couple of meals when I can afford all sorts of different things.

Again, I try to avoid insulin spikes, that is, if I eat sweets on the weekend, it’s after a heavy meal of protein and fatty foods. I wrote more about this in this article:

By the way, I finally broke the canon for myself that fatty food- this is bad. We are, of course, talking about natural fats: lard, fatty meat, oven-baked chicken thighs, hard cheeses, full-fat milk.

Judging by the world ideology of combating fat in food adopted in the early 1980s, I should have ended up getting fat, having problems with the heart, digestion, etc. But there are no problems, the gastrointestinal tract works like a clock, and much better than before I ate more traditionally - with side dishes (rice, buckwheat, potatoes), lean breast meat and avoiding saturated fats.

In the first couple of months, I kept my caloric intake at 2900 kcal per day, plus I replenished the energy spent on training (another 600–800 kcal). Weight remained at 101 kg.

Then I decided that I needed to return to a comfortable 105–107 kg, but maintaining the achieved relief. I added 200–250 kcal to the base 2900, plus replenishing the energy spent on training, plus a few uncontrollable meals on the weekend. In the smart language of sports gurus - carbohydrate loading, but to put it simply, it’s just gluttony. As a result, now my weight in the morning on an empty stomach is about 105 kg (with a height of 190 cm), and my shape has not changed much over the past couple of months. Something between the wild boar in the first photo above and the dried 101-kilogram comrade in the third:

Why am I writing all this? Yes to the fact that there are too many myths around nutritional principles for losing weight or gaining weight. Too many hassles around specific meals, their quantity and nutrition before and after training.

Perhaps something will be true for the competitive athlete pushing his body to its peak, gaining extreme muscle mass with minimal amounts of fat. But for ordinary people who train only for themselves and, at most, want to have the look of a beach jock, or even just be fit and without a belly, you need to bother less.

In short:

• Without a lot of carbohydrates, you can gain weight without getting fat.. During the work week I have up to 100 g of carbohydrates per day, although on weekends I can reach 400–500 g. The body is accustomed to quickly switching to using fat as energy, so I feel good with a small amount of carbohydrates. With a big one on the weekend it’s generally an extravaganza (sometimes the energy rushes over the edge).
• It is not the number of meals per day that is important, but the daily and weekly calorie content. You can eat it required quantity daily calories for two times - approx. There will be no difference if you eat them 6-8 times. It’s just not very convenient to eat every 1.5–2 hours. If you don't eat enough one day, eat a little more the next. And vice versa.
• Fats (saturated and unsaturated) are no less important than protein. The only exceptions are trans fats, that is, margarine and all products containing it - they should absolutely not be consumed. Fat is used in the hormonal system, in building cells and as a source of energy. Lack of fat, like protein, leads to problems.
• But there is no such thing as a lack of carbohydrates.. Your daily 70–100 g of glucose with a reasonable (including low-carbohydrate) diet, the brain and nervous system they will get it anyway. For example, by extracting it from amino acids and a component of fats - glycerol. The process is called gluconeogenesis.

I checked all this on my personal experience and below we will move specifically to the topic of the article - nutrition before and after training.

Nutrition immediately before and during training

I would like to note that the principles below are universal for both weight gain and weight loss. At least, I personally didn’t change them, but at the same time I successfully got rid of what was unnecessary and gained what I needed.

So, what is important in training:

1. Feeling good so that there is no heaviness in the stomach.
2. The presence of high levels of amino acids in the blood.
3. Energy.

The first and second are achieved due to reasonable meal times. A hearty lunch a couple of hours before training is great. Actually, this is how it works out for me in most cases. Usually this is meat (oven-baked chicken thighs), hard cheese, and vegetables. For those who don’t bother with carbohydrates, this will be a side dish (rice, buckwheat, durum wheat pasta), meat, vegetables.

If I eat 3-4 hours before training, then an hour before going to gym I also drink a good amount whey protein. It is absorbed within 30 minutes, and an hour after taking the protein mixture, the level of amino acids in the blood rises to a maximum, after which it lasts for another couple of hours. That is, during the workout itself and after it ends (my main strength training lasts no more than an hour).

There is an interesting story about protein and amino acids Boris Tsatsouline. I don’t agree with everything, but in general the topic of protein intake is well described:

When does training happen in the morning?, then in the past I tried to drink a shake of oatmeal and protein an hour and a half before it. Her recipe and many other useful ones are in my feature article:

As an alternative - a couple of three boiled eggs with oatmeal.

Now, on a low-carb diet, it’s either a cottage cheese dessert (recipe above), or, if I overslept and there’s an hour or so left before training, I consume a good portion of 40–60 grams of protein.

For energy 30 minutes before training I drink a cup of natural coffee, sometimes with a piece of dark chocolate. Sometimes I add a teaspoon of arginine, a gram of vitamin C and a vitamin B complex (Now B-50).

Directly during training I drink water with BCAA mixed in it. Or just water. In the first case, it invigorates well.

For those who don’t bother with low-carb, I recommend using sports isotonics. They replenish salts leaving the body (they come out with sweat), plus they contain some quickly digestible carbohydrates, which provide excellent support during heavy workouts of the legs or back.

The most important conclusion from everything written above- Do not under any circumstances load your stomach with solid food 30–60 minutes before training. The result will be disastrous, ranging from lethargy and weakness to nausea.

Besides, I do not recommend consuming fast carbohydrates immediately before training, which greatly raises blood sugar levels. We're talking about candies, milk chocolate, cookies and the like. At first, the sugar will jump and you will feel good, but then it will drop quite quickly, and right during training. It can fall very quickly (due to physical activity) and significantly below the average value, which is fraught with very bad sensations. You know, it happens that things get really bad, really bad, you turn pale, your vision gets dark. This is it! In such a critical case, it is worth having something sweet in stock - lemonade, caramel. He threw it in, and in 5-10 minutes it would release.

Post-workout nutrition

I often see how guys, having just dropped the weights and reached the locker room, immediately start eating bananas, drinking kefir, and protein mixtures. Like a protein-carbohydrate window, nutrients are absorbed better, you urgently need to reinforce the body and all that. But in this case there is only one effect - not very good sensations in the stomach area. All the blood is in the muscles and the body is not ready to immediately switch to digestion. As a result, food is not digested effectively.

As research and our own practice have shown, there is no need to rush to eat after a workout. Calmly, washed up, drove home and ate. Even if this happened two hours after training, there is nothing to worry about. The main thing is to eat. I repeat, It is not the time of meal that is important, but the total daily calorie content.

The concept of a carbohydrate window is largely a myth. Rather, in the words of a famous blogger Denis Borisov, these are whole " garage doors ", when protein and carbohydrates are absorbed more efficiently after exercise within 24-48 hours. Accordingly, it is important to eat a balanced and plentiful diet in general, and not how quickly you eat immediately after training. Here is a thematic video from Denis:

Regarding composition of post-workout lunch or dinner, then everything is traditional - meat, side dish, herbs and vegetables.

For me, this dinner usually occurs around 9-10 pm, so I limit myself to half a dozen whole eggs (boiled or fried), salad and hard cheese as part of my LCHF diet. Either it is a cottage cheese dessert, a casserole, or something similar and easily digestible (recipes in the article above). A couple of times I tried to eat meat at such a late hour, but then I didn’t sleep well. So I don't recommend it.

Less worries and you will be happy

There are no miracles and everything in the area of ​​weight gain or loss is simple:

• We eat more than we expend energy - we grow(or we get fat if there is too much food, and even mixed with food garbage).
• We eat less than we spend energy - we lose weight(or we become skinny if we cut our diet too much, there is no physical activity and the diet is unbalanced).
• It is not the number of meals that is important, but the total daily and weekly calorie content.
• If you want to control your diet, weigh your food and count calories. Or prepare food for a day or three days at once and don’t look past the containers with it. Look in the mirror - like it appearance, there is a result, which means you leave everything as it is. If you don’t like it (getting fat, getting skinny), change the amount of food in one direction or another at the expense of carbohydrates.

The most difficult thing is to establish a diet, choose a balanced diet and, most importantly, follow this very regimen. It takes an average of 21 days to develop a habit.

Those who have enough willpower will achieve results; those who don’t have enough willpower, which means they don’t have any special desire to change anything in their life for the better. This is why it’s worth dancing, and only then bothering with nutrition before and after training.

And there are no special secrets - a large meal no later than a couple of hours before training. We didn’t have time to eat on time, a protein mixture to help (40–60 minutes before, no later). After training, we don’t rush to eat, the main thing is to eat well, and whether this happens in an hour or two is not important.

I checked everything from personal experience, everything works. By the way, a well-known video blogger in certain circles adheres to the same principles Alexey Shredder. Actually, here is his diet and there is a mention of nutrition before and after training:

So go ahead, try and everything will work out. There would be a desire to change your life for the better.

Shutterstock.com

Poor nutrition before and after training can not only cause discomfort during exercise, but also make it useless or even harmful. Depending on your goals, nutrition may vary. But if you're not a bodybuilder, forget about hard drying, which is so actively discussed on many forums. This is a training regime for sports competitions that has nothing to do with fitness and wellness programs.

When and what to eat before training

In sports medicine there is such a thing as. Nutritionist and international fitness trainer Olga Perevalova recommends an hour before training eat some grain bread, or any fruit, or a sandwich with cheese, drink juice or a glass of tea.

“Even if an athlete trains at 5 am, he will never start the day without breakfast,” says nutritionist Olga Perevalova. “Otherwise there will be no sense in the lesson.” If you are losing weight, you need to understand that Trying to burn fat on an empty stomach is useless" The body needs to be started, like a car: just as the car will not move without fuel injection, the necessary processes in the human body will not start without carbohydrate loading.

Nutritionist Ekaterina Belova offers a slightly different approach. Regardless of the type of load and training goals, she recommends not eating carbohydrate foods (grains, vegetables, fruits) one and a half to two hours before class, and proteins and fats - two to three hours. “When you start training, food should already move from the stomach to the intestines,” says Ekaterina.

Carbohydrate loading, in her opinion, only makes sense if you haven’t eaten for a long time or haven’t eaten at all in the morning. If you eat enough during the day and make sure that the breaks between meals are no more than five hours, then it is better not to eat anything one and a half to two hours before class.

Yoga is a different story. The best time to practice is in the morning, and all instructors recommend do yoga on an empty stomach. Even my small practice experience confirms that any food a couple of hours before a lesson interferes with comfortable study. However, Olga Perevalova recommends having breakfast in this case too. But breakfast should not just be light, but very light - a glass of tea or water with lemon juice and a spoonful of honey.

Is it possible to eat during training?

Let me clarify right away - this unexpected item appeared here only for those who prefer long-term training. For example, for long distance runners.

When I took part in a 10-kilometer race, the more experienced runners I knew halfway through the race took small bags out of their pockets and quickly sucked something jelly-like from them. " Carbohydrate supplements are really good for long intense workouts, says Ekaterina Belova. — Energy resources need to be replenished. Those who choose this type of exercise usually have little body fat and it is not so easily included in the process. It’s easier to add carbs and move on.”

Post-workout nutrition

It all depends on your type of load. If you do cardio, for example, just run, then your the main task is to restore glycogen reserves, the so-called storage carbohydrate. “During training, you first use up blood glucose, then glycogen reserves, and only then adipose tissue is activated,” says Ekaterina Belova. - If you do not restore glycogen stores immediately after exercise, then this in itself will take a very long time. You will slow down your metabolic processes and reduce your endurance." So if you fast after running, don't expect any progress.

Ekaterina Belova recommends 15 minutes after class drink a milkshake, smoothie, water with carbohydrates, eat a piece of fruit or drink fresh juice. “By the way, this is the only time when freshly squeezed juice, rich in quickly digestible carbohydrates, is really useful,” says Ekaterina Belova. “In other cases, slow carbohydrates are much preferable.”

If you are interested in strengthening muscles or building muscle mass, then your second goal in post-workout nutrition is to maintain metabolic window rule. Within two hours after class, you must eat something with high content squirrel. This could be a protein shake, cottage cheese or lean meat, poultry or fish.

Ekaterina Belova recommends shortening this period of time up to one hour: “If you don’t eat in the first hour, then continue to put it off. While I was driving home through traffic jams, while I was sorting out family matters and preparing dinner, four hours would fly by unnoticed. It’s better to take cottage cheese with you or have dinner after training in a cafe.”

The point of the metabolic window rule is primarily to ensure that muscles recover properly. If you don’t “feed” them, there will be no result even from the most persistent exercises. , and rest and nutrition after training. “If you don’t eat anything after exercise, the muscles begin to atrophy, weakness and malaise appear,” says Olga Perevalova.

In addition, proper nutrition after training allows you to properly start your metabolism the next day. “If you burn 400 kcal or more per hour of fitness, your metabolism accelerates by 8-10 percent and returns to its previous state only after a day,” says Olga Perevalova. “And if you eat right the whole time, you lose weight and improve your body composition.”

And of course, post-workout nutrition excludes all fatty, fried, sausages, flour and sweets. This can result in excess weight and cellulite even with intense training. But by and large, nutritionists recommend avoiding these products not only after fitness, but generally always.

How do you organize your nutrition before and after training?

Delicious and healthy recipes you can find it on our new service!