QUESTION: Sports Nutrition: What to Eat Before and After a Workout?
Proper sports nutrition is the foundation upon which your athletic performance, endurance, and overall physical capacity are built. The question of what and when to eat before and after a workout concerns every athlete striving for progress without compromising their health. At the very beginning of working on sports nutrition, it is necessary to clearly define your personal goals and create a training schedule, limiting yourself initially to two or three sessions a week. At this stage, it is important to develop basic dietary habits, learn to listen to your body's signals, and only then move on to strict calculations of macronutrients and calorie intake.
The pre-workout meal should provide the body with sufficient energy without causing a feeling of heaviness in the stomach or discomfort during movement. An hour and a half to two hours before the start of the session, it is recommended to eat a portion of complex carbohydrates with a moderate amount of easily digestible protein, such as oatmeal with a banana or a portion of rice with boiled chicken breast.
If there is very little time left before the workout, you can have a small carbohydrate-rich snack or drink a glass of fruit juice thirty minutes prior to quickly raise blood sugar levels and get the necessary boost of energy for performing exercises.
After the workout is completed, the so-called anabolic window begins, during which the body most effectively absorbs nutrients to repair muscle fibers and replenish glycogen stores.
Within the first hour after physical activity, you need to close the carbohydrate-protein window by consuming protein food along with quality carbohydrates—this could be a portion of a protein shake with berries or a full meal of fish and mashed potatoes. Gradual increases in gym loads should be accompanied by a proportional increase in your diet's caloric content so that the body does not experience a deficit of building materials for new athletic achievements.