The Golden Hour

To speed up your post workout recovery, reduce soreness, and boost your ability to workout again sooner, you may need to adjust your diet for post training fuel.

We call it the golden hour but really it’s 45 minutes, the sooner the better!

During the workout your body is using carbs stored in the body as glucose and glycogen.  Immediately post training the body is primed for the replacement of this stored fuel.  Replacing it during this window means the muscles will recover quicker allowing for less DOMS (stiffness/soreness) and it will also help with the rebuilding or hypertrophy  of muscles (muscle growth).

The best fuel post workout is 50% carbs and 50% protein.  A snack is fine so that might be around 250-350 calories as opposed to a meal of 400-700 calories.  But if it’s time for a meal this is also fine.  Examples could be a bowl of healthy cereal with milk, or a small bread roll packed with low fat protein (chicken/egg/tofu).

If you are also watching your weight or trying to lose weight then it’s important not to add an extra meal to your day, but instead, to play with the timings of meals so that this post workout snack can be accommodated.  For example delay breakfast until after the workout or eat half of your lunch early/late.