Every single athlete understands how important it is to time meals and plan them, together with snacks. This is what helps reach performance goals. The problem is that most people are not athletes. Those that want to work out and that need to eat after sessions do not really know what they should eat.
The most important part is to be sure that your diet is healthy at all times. You want to eat enough calories to properly support activity levels. It is possible to rely on energy levels, appetite and on experience in order to see what to eat. The general idea is that you have to figure out what works best for you. This may be different than what you see in magazines or on the internet.
Everything basically starts with understanding the needs that your body has. That is what counts the most at the end of the day. Remember this so that you can decide what you have to eat after workouts.
Fluid Needs After A Workout
Moderate exercisers normally lose around 4 fluid cups in one exercise hour. This means that you have to drink around 20 water ounces after the workout so that the recovery process can be aided. When sweating a lot or there is a lot of humidity/heat in the air, you should weight your body before and after you work out. DO drink one water ounce for every weight ounce that you lost. Heavy sweating does cause a loss of electrolytes and minerals. Sports drinks that contain electrolytes are normally recommended because of this.
Post Exercise Snacks And Meals
In most cases you do not have to be obsessed about the calorie counts and the nutrients ratio after the workout in order to precisely calculate everything. The thing is that you should not eat anything that you can put your hands on. Most people will feel hungry post workouts. Because of this people tend to eat a lot more than they actually need. Unfortunately, choosing foods that are not suitable are not going to aid the body. You would easily end up faced with various problems when you eat wrong meals. The body would end up storing the food as fat and not helping repair and fuel muscles.
Calorie Content
It is a good idea to eat around 50% of the calories that were burned as you worked out. When you eat around 500 calories, you have to eat 250 calories in the post workout period. You should not worry about calorie burning workout foods. Weight loss does not work like that. Do stay in the calorie range, focus on healthy meals and all would be ok.
Carbohydrates
It is recommended that the post workout meal is made out of around 60% carbohydrates. This is one thing that many do not understand. The human body requires carbs much more than protein during the post workout period. This is because the muscle has to replace fuel that was used in the workout. Moderate exercisers require around 35 grams of carbs around 1 hour after the exercise. However, the exercisers that go through high intensity training do need more, around 55 grams for one workout hour. It is a good idea to go for high carb food without fibers and whole grains. That is because refined carbs are faster to be digested.
Protein
Protein is needed but only at a content of around 25% of the meal. The protein needs to be of a really high quality. Protein stops the body from destroying muscle tissues in order to get energy and will aid the repair process of muscles. Most people need to consume around 15 grams of protein after the workout.
Fat
The fat content of your post workout meal is not that important. However, you do not want to eat too much. Around 15% of the content should be fat. This is basically under 10 grams for most individuals.