What you eat is just as important as how hard you exercise when it comes to building lean body mass. Good nutrition is especially important after a workout. Exercise depletes glycogen stores, and if you don’t replenish them, your body may break down muscle to use the amino acids for energy. In addition, you’ll feel fatigued if you don’t eat after exercising. What you eat after a workout can even affect the hormonal response to a strength training workout.
What You Eat after a Workout Affects Hormones That Build Muscle and Burn Fat
When you plan what to eat after a resistance training workout, make sure it includes a source of both protein and carbohydrates. Research shows that the combination of the two macronutrients helps to boost hormones that build lean body mass.
In one study, researchers gave weight lifters either carbohydrate, protein or a protein/carbohydrate combination immediately after a strength training workout and again two hours later. Both the carbohydrate and protein post-workout meals boosted growth hormone and insulin levels, but the carbohydrate/protein combination had the most pronounced effect on these muscle-building hormones.
Why Growth Hormone and Insulin Are Important After a Workout
Both growth hormone and insulin are anabolic hormones that enhance growth, although growth hormone increases the size of the connective tissue around the muscle rather than the size of the muscle itself. Growth hormone also boosts fat-burning.
Insulin is a hormone you don’t want circulating at high levels most of the time since it boosts fat storage. But immediately after a strength workout, you need more insulin to shift amino acids from protein into muscle cells where they can be used for muscle growth and repair.
What to Eat After a Workout
A combination of protein and carbohydrate is the best post-workout meal. You need carbohydrates to replace lost glycogen and amino acids from protein to build muscle. Plus the combination of the two maximizes the release of hormones that help to build lean body mass.
Post-workout nutrition is important to put for putting your muscles into an anabolic state and supplying them with the nutrition they need for growth and repair. After a workout is one of the best times to consume simple carbohydrates because you want to increase insulin levels to help amino acids get into the muscle cells.
How Much Carbs and Protein Do You Need after a Workout?
Most sources suggest that you get between 15 and 30 grams of protein after a strength training workout. Thirty grams is at the high end unless you weight 200 pounds or more. If you’re not a heavyweight, stick with 15 to 20 grams of protein for your post-workout meal. Combine that with 0.3 and 0.4 grams of carbs per pound of body weight. For a 150 pound person, you should get between 40 and 50 grams of carbohydrates after a workout.
Timing is important too. Eat your post-workout meal within 30 minutes of exercise. Simple carbohydrates are best during the post-workout period since they’re more rapidly absorbed. Save simple carbohydrates for the post-workout period, and stick with high fiber carbs the rest of the day.
The Bottom Line?
Post-workout nutrition is not only important for replenishing glycogen and muscle amino acid stores; it also may affect your hormonal response to a workout. After a workout, eat a meal that contains both protein and carbs to boost your body’s ability to build lean mass.
References:
Exercise Physiology. Energy, Nutrition, and Human Performance. Fifth Edition. 2001.
Austr. J. Sc. Med. Sport. Mar; 29(1): 3-10.
Related Articles By Cathe:
How Important Are Anabolic Hormones for Muscle Hypertrophy?
5 Hormones and How They Affect Your Body Composition
Resistance Training and Testosterone: What Role Does It Play in Women?
Does the Release of Anabolic Hormones After Heavy Resistance Training Really Boost Muscle Growth?
Strength Training: 5 Rules for Training to Failure
Hypertrophy Training: Does Training Too Often Interfere with Muscle Growth?
