When Meal Time Really Matters

When you’re training and aiming for a specific goal, it’s wise to pull the big levers first. Getting enough food, enough sleep, and enough time to exercise will have the biggest impact on your results. But once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to learn how to properly distribute nutrition throughout the day.

What you need to figure out before you start fiddling with timing

Let me remind you that one of the most important aspects of nutrition is the correct amount of food, which we usually measure in calories. Eat less than you spend to lose weight , more than you spend to gain weight (useful if you’re trying to build muscle), or if you don’t want either, just keep your calories at a level that supports your weight is stable . If changing your body size isn’t a priority, you don’t need to keep track of it exactly; just make sure you don’t accidentally undereat when you don’t want to.

Next is protein . If you’re gaining muscle mass, this is an important building block. If you’re losing weight, eating protein (and strength training!) helps your body retain as much muscle as possible, so that most of the weight lost is fat. And if you’re doing strength or endurance training (like running), protein helps you maintain the muscles that help you do it all.

When you consistently get enough calories and protein, you have a lot more leeway to adjust your diet to your liking. We should all get some amount of fat – 0.5 grams per pound of body weight or more. And carbohydrates may not be essential for life (as low-carb proponents like to point out), but people who eat a lot of carbohydrates have a much better time in the gym than those who don’t. Carbohydrates provide energy for activity and keep your body from turning to muscle tissue for extra energy.

Finally, the rest of the nutrients in your food also matter. Fiber is important. Vitamins are important. Fruits and vegetables should make up the bulk of every person’s diet . These things keep you healthy, even if they’re not macros that you could keep track of.

I’m talking about all this because what you eat is more important than when you eat it. If you’re not getting enough protein or vegetables, fixing the situation is more important than getting the timing right. But if you have the basics, let’s talk about timing.

Carbs before workout

When we rest, our fat provides most of the fuel our body needs. The body is constantly using fat for energy, so “fat-burning” workouts or supplements are just stupid. Fat is like a bank account: the amount is determined by how deposits balance withdrawals, not just by looking at withdrawals.

When we exercise, our slow and steady rate of fat burning has a hard time keeping up with what we’re asking our bodies to do. If we have available carbohydrates in the form of blood sugar or muscle glycogen, we use them as a source of fuel. If we don’t have enough carbohydrates, we may feel tired or lethargic. We can still exercise, but workouts are often better if we manage to get some carbs before or even during the workout.

So if you feel sluggish while exercising, consider eating some carbs beforehand. Also consider this time if your workouts start off well but feel unusually tired towards the end, or if you have a habit of exercising before breakfast and want to see if your meal schedule can give you that extra boost you don’t even know you have. gone .

“Carbohydrates” refers to anything that contains sugar, or anything that quickly breaks down into sugar, which basically means starches. If you can eat shortly before your workout, try classic meals like:

• Banana
• Toast or bread with jam or just a thin layer of something else like peanut butter.
• Oatmeal
• Skimmed milk, possibly with cereal or muesli
• Low fat yogurt with berries
• Smoothies made from carbohydrates such as fruit

Proteins and fats can slow down digestion, so you don’t need too much of them in your pre-workout meal. That’s why you should choose low-fat dairy or leave a thin layer of peanut butter on your toast. But if you’re eating breakfast a few hours before your workout, feel free to opt for slower-digesting, high-fat dairy options, or even add some protein powder to your smoothie.

Sugar while exercising

When workouts last longer than an hour or so, you may need more than just a pre-workout snack. That’s why marathon runners will suck on gel packs while they run, and why powerlifters will hand out candy packs between sets.

If you’re consuming carbs during your workout, you need something that absorbs quickly. This means that you want something more or less pure sugar. Yes, you may need to avoid sugar in a healthy diet, but in the middle of a workout, sugar serves a very specific purpose. It becomes available to your body very quickly to better fuel you in the moment. If you participate in endurance events, such as a long run or bike race, you may need 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour . Examples:

• Energy gels like GU
• Drinks like Tailwind or Gatorade
• Candy such as gummy bears (favorite by runners) or sour patchkids (favorite by powerlifters and weightlifters)

Many of us don’t train long enough or hard enough to worry about it. But if you’re training for a marathon or half marathon and find yourself reaching for the end of your long runs, or if your workouts can go much longer than an hour and you find yourself resting longer and longer between sets towards the end, try a gel or snack during workout time and see if you feel the difference.

Post-workout carbs if you have another workout coming up soon

Let’s take another look at muscle glycogen, one of those carbohydrate sources we use during our workouts. After exercise, glycogen stores are depleted. Over the next 24 hours or so, we will be eating carbohydrates as part of our meals and these glycogen stores will be replenished again.

Eating a high carbohydrate diet helps replenish glycogen stores throughout the day and keep them full. (You may not get as much replenishment if you follow a low-carb diet like keto.) If you’ve finished your workout and are unlikely to train until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you really don’t need to worry about this one; just eat well.

But if you’re doing two hard workouts a day, or if you just worked out in the evening but want to be in top shape for a run the next morning, you can replenish your glycogen stores faster . After a hard workout, your muscles are ready to store carbs as glycogen if they can get them, so consider eating a high carb post-workout meal.

Protein in small amounts throughout the day

As we discussed above, the most important factor in protein intake is the amount. To meet the Recommended Daily Allowance (the minimum that everyone should be getting, athlete or not), you need 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That would be 54 grams for a 150 lb person.

But if you’re trying to build muscle or maintain muscle mass during endurance training or weight loss, you’ll need more—0.63 to 0.82 grams per pound of bodyweight, depending on the intensity. your needs. This would be 95 to 123 grams for the same 150 lb person. Exceeding this amount is usually normal for your health (talk to your doctor if you have kidney problems), but not necessarily.

So what about time? Well, it turns out your body makes the best use of protein if you can get it in multiple doses throughout the day. There is a myth that your body can only use a small amount of protein in one sitting, leading some people to believe that excess protein is “wasted”. This is n’t entirely true , but you’ll probably give your body stronger signals to build muscle if you can spread your protein across four or five meals rather than eating low protein foods all day and then eating a giant steak. for dinner.

A good way to follow this rule of thumb is to keep track of your total protein and make sure you eat at least 20 grams of protein or more multiple times throughout the day. It could be breakfast, lunch, a protein bar as a snack, dinner, and then a simple protein powder shake in the evening.

Proteins, fats and fiber when you want to feel full or slow digestion

We talked about fast-digesting carbohydrates (sugar, simple starch), but the downside is that other nutrients are absorbed more slowly. You don’t need this when you’re in the middle of a workout, but it can be helpful at other times.

For example, oatmeal makes you feel full longer than something like white bread because it is high in soluble fiber. Protein makes you feel full because your stomach holds protein foods longer than other foods. (The stomach is just one of the many parts of your digestive system, but it’s where proteins take some time to break down before being sent to the next stage.) Fats also make you feel full, though this can vary from eye to eye. .

So if you’re having breakfast before a long work morning and you know it’ll be a while before lunch, oatmeal (fiber) with almond butter (fat) and scrambled eggs (protein) will keep you healthy. you feel full for much longer than some toast with jam. Save the toast for when you want a pre-workout snack.