Welcome to part one of a two part series on how to properly support your fitness efforts outside of your actual workouts. Throughout these articles I’ll share my personal and professional opinions on how to get the most out of your workouts before and after you exercise. I’ve found from personal experience and working with my clients that many people are missing three pieces of the healthy lifestyle puzzle that are just as important as the actual exercise. In part one I’ll talk about the importance of food. Part two will focus on the benefits of sleep. And part three will focus on mobility and stretching. Let’s get started.
Part One: Food
Back in the day, before I was a health coach and personal trainer, I had the mindset that I could eat whatever I wanted to after my workout because I “earned” it. I gained about 20 pounds working at a sedentary job in college and eating anything that my body “craved.” A light bulb went on in my head when I realized my workout routine stayed the same but the pounds kept adding up slowly. I knew I had to clean up my eating style in order to lose the weight that wasn’t serving me anymore.
I’m sure many of you can relate to this or a similar mindset. Why is it that we think we can eat whatever we want if we exercise? Often times it’s only when we’re not moving frequently that we think we need eat healthy. Maybe you’ve heard from a fitness professional that it’s ok to do this because quality isn’t really what matters in your food. Calories and fat content are more important. “Everything in moderation” is a common phrase among health and fitness professionals. Or could it be just an excuse to indulge in too many high calorie processed foods?
I’m here to tell you the quality of food matters most when it comes to how you fuel your body before and after workouts. While the number of calories does make a difference with replenishing your body after a workout, it’s definitely not something to put at the top of the priority list.
When you workout, your body is burning energy in the form of calories and fat or glucose, depending on the intensity of the workout. After your workout, even though you may feel a surge of energy, your body is fatigued and deserves proper replenishing.
When your body is burning calories (which it is all the time), it’s either using “clean” or “dirty” fuel. Dirty fuel is processed junk food such as fast food, packaged baked goods, processed meats, etc. with little to no nutrients. Clean fuel is whole nutrient-dense food such as healthy fats (avocado or olive oil to name a few), healthy proteins (grass-fed animals or wild caught seafood), and starchy and non-starchy vegetables. After you burn the calories you consume, it’s important to replenish those calories with clean ones.
Think about when you take a shower or bath. When you’re feeling grimy because you haven’t showered in a day would you take a shower in dirty water? Probably not. This kind of defeats the purpose of taking a shower to get clean. Sure, using soap will help but you’ll likely still feel grimy after a dirty water shower even with the soap. On the other hand, when you shower in clean water and soap you’re able to wash away all the dirt and grime that’s built up on your skin.
It’s the same concept with food and fitness. When you exercise, the goal is to become healthier in one way or another, right? This can be anything from training for an organized race to simply being able to do daily activities such as getting out of chair or carrying a bag of groceries. Putting your body through a workout, regardless of the difficulty, fatigues your muscles, nervous system, and joints. In order to help your body fully recover it’s important to replenish it with healthy, natural foods to support your goal of becoming healthier.
When we do any type of strength workout our muscles actually get micro tears in them. During the recovery process, the muscles repair themselves and grow. Muscles don’t grow during the actual workout so this is why it’s so important to eat healthy sources of protein to support muscle growth.
When we do a vigorous workout such as a sprint session or high intensity interval training our bodies are utilizing glucose (carbs) for fuel. When our glucose stores are depleted we need to make sure we replenish them for the next workout. There are two healthy ways we can do this. The first is simply eat starchy fruits and vegetables. Sweet potatoes and bananas are my go to foods to replenish my glucose supply. Any other root vegetables or fruit work well, too.
If you’re on a super-low carb eating style such as keto, eating an adequate amount of healthy protein is another good way to replenish your glucose supply. When our bodies recognize the need for more carbs and they’re not being consumed at the time, it will go through a process called gluconeogenesis (glue-co-neo-genesis). Yeah, I know, such a fun word to say! Anyway, during this process our bodies will take protein either from food consumed or lean muscle mass, and break it down to make glucose. We want to avoid breaking down lean muscle mass so it’s important to eat adequate protein.
When you follow the simple rule of eating whole, real nutrient-dense food your body will recover faster and more efficiently after a workout. In order to make this happen, it’s important to have whole, real nutrient-dense foods available after you workout for whenever you feel hungry. This can be anything from a homemade protein smoothie in an insulated container, a protein bar made with real ingredients (no sugar or fillers), or a home cooked meal with a piece of fish and side of vegetables with butter. This can be shortly after your workout or whenever you feel hungry. Remind yourself that you just burned all this energy and want to replace that energy with clean fuel rather than dirty fuel.
I encourage you to be mindful of your food intake in the next week and take note on how you feel before and after you exercise. Plan all your meals including snacks in advance if needed.
Next week I’ll talk about the importance of sleep.