Post-Training Meal

I talked about the importance of a pre-training meal here, and the post-training meal is just as important to maximize consistent training quality and adaptations. There are a few main goals with the meal you consume after training, and they include refueling (CHO), rehydrating (H2O & Na), and repairing (Protein). I will cover all three below.

Refueling has to do with replenishing the stored carbohydrates you burned during your session. Whenever you are contracting your muscles for movement, you are burning carbohydrates as fuel. Low intensity exercise still burns muscle glycogen, but to a much lower extent. The body has a limited store of carbohydrates in the muscles (~500g) and liver (~100g). A moderate to high intensity training session can deplete these stores completely if the duration of training is 90-120mins. The body can restore some of this glycogen on its own by converting amino acids and lactate to glucose via gluconeogenesis, but carbohydrate based foods must be consumed to replenish them completely. With that said, the foods you eat after training are what will contribute to replenishing the body’s glycogen stores. The standard practice is to consume around 1.0-1.5g grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight after training. These carbs can come from any source - solid, liquid, complex, or simple carbs all do the same job of refueling glycogen stores. If there is any appropriate time for refined carbohydrate foods, within 60minutes of your last session is the time. The rapid digestion and absorption allows simple carbs to enter the muscle cells more quickly than complex carb sources, and the muscle sensitivity to glucose keeps insulins levels low after training. It may take some planning, but once you figure out what 1.0-1.5g/kg of carbs looks like, you will be able to make better food choices after training.

Rehydrating is about replacing the fluids and electrolytes you lost via sweat during training. Obviously, drinking water is the best way to ensure you replace the water you lost from sweating, but drinking this water is not worth anything if you do not combine it with electrolytes and carbohydrates. The body requires water to store carbohydrates, as every gram of glycogen stores roughly 3 grams of water along with it. More importantly for hydration though, the body’s cells and fluid compartments do not retain water without electrolytes along with that water. This balance is regulated by the brain as it monitors blood sodium concentration. The main electrolyte that athletes need to focus on for hydration is sodium. Sodium is the primary electrolyte we lose when we sweat, and it plays a large role in fluid balance of the body (keeping an appropriate amount of fluid inside and outside of the cells). Athletes can sweat anywhere from 1 to 3 or more liters of fluid per hour of exercise depending on temperature, clothing, and training intensity. This means fluids are being lost at a rapid rate when we exercise due to the excessive heat production from the working muscles and our body’s need to thermoregulate. Within this sweat contains lots of sodium. For an athlete sweating 1-3L/h, it contains on average around 1000mg of sodium per liter of that sweat. In the end, sweating causes significant fluid and sodium losses that must be replaced by the diet. The protocol for replacing fluids includes drinking back 100% to 150% of the sweat loss you incurred during your training. You can determine how much sweat you lost by weighing yourself immediately before and after exercise, and assume that the vast majority of this weight loss is sweat. If you have to use the bathroom during training, assume 0.3L for urination and subtract that from your initial weight measurement. If you lost 2kg, following this protocol would mean drinking back 2kg (100%) to 3kg (150%) of this fluid loss. The reason to drink 150% of your fluid loss is that you continue to sweat after you stop exercising, the body does not retain all of the fluid you consume post exercise, and you may have to urinate after exercise, all of which contribute to further fluid loss once you stop. When it comes to sodium, a good place to start is to eat a meal that contains sodium, or add an electrolyte drink to you post ride recovery meal. You can also think of it as aiming to get ~400mg of sodium per liter of fluid you need to consume…so if you needed to drink back 3L of fluid for 150% fluid replacement, you can drink 3L of water with 1200mg of sodium. Individual sodium losses vary, and you may need to adjust your sodium intake after training to your individual needs.

Repairing after a training session is the most critical component of improving your performance as an athlete. Exercising is a catabolic activity, meaning that cells in your body are breaking things down to create energy and movement as you carry out your session. This means that training depletes you and breaks you down. When the body is depleted, refueling and rehydrating can help replenish the fuel and water stores that were lost, but you still have some muscle damage that you incurred from your training session. This damage refers to the breakdown of muscle and other tissue proteins that need to be repaired. The body can utilize some of its own stored proteins to repair damage from exercise, but to get much more benefit from your training at a much quicker rate, consuming dietary protein after training will speed recovery and provide the body with the proper resources it needs to send adaptive signals and grow stronger than you were at the beginning of the training session. Protein intake should be spread across the day to consistently spike muscle protein synthesis, which is a state where proteins are being rebuilt at a faster rate than they are broken down. Consuming protein IMMEDIATELY after training is not as dire as carbohydrates or fluids since muscle protein remains elevated for 48 hours, but if you train consistently, or if you have another session coming up within the next 8-24 hours, then including protein within 60 minutes of your last training session will help you recover faster and get the most out of your hard work. 20-30 grams of protein is usually enough to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and maximize absorption, and another reference of 0.3-0.4g/kg can be used to adjust for size. The body can absorb up to 50g or more of protein in one meal, so do not be concerned of consuming “too much protein” after training, if anything, too little will do more harm (as long as you are in energy balance). Ideally, this protein should come from animal protein sources such as eggs, meat, dairy, and whey powders. Animal proteins contain all of the nine essential amino acids that our bodies cannot generate on their own whereas plant proteins do not contain all nine. If you are consuming plant protein sources for recovery, you will need to include multiple plant sources to obtain all nine essential amino acids. This is important because animal proteins ensure that the body has 100% of the building blocks it needs to rebuild whatever tissues were damaged during exercise, along with the need to support hormone production and cell membrane integrity. Ingesting protein after training provides the building blocks to communicate with the DNA in your muscle cells to make new things, such as mitochondria, blood vessels, and muscle proteins, all of which are part of the adaptation process making you stronger. In the end, training breaks you down and makes you worse, protein + rest is where you get stronger!

SUMMARY:

So there it is, you just finished your training session or race, and you now have a better understanding of some of the things you need to think about for recovery nutrition. REFUEL, REHYDRATE, and REPAIR. Put simply, consume carbohydrates (1.0-1.5g/kg), rehydrate with water (100%-150% fluid loss), rehydrate with sodium (~400mg/L using foods or electrolyte supplements), and repair with protein (~20-30g or 0.3-0.4g/kg). After your post-training meal, you can resume a normal meal pattern. When compared to consuming nothing at all after a training session, the difference an appropriate post-training meal can make on your performance is significant. As with most things in endurance sports, consistency is key, so I encourage you to plan out some meals that tick all the boxes and develop a practice of consuming a post-training meal!

Disclaimer* I am only offering general nutrition advice and I highly recommend working with a registered dietician for more professional nutrition guidance. This is not intended to be medical advice to diagnose or treat diseases.