Post-Workout Nutrition??

[Tim Wescott]

OK,I know we have it all pounded into our heads to drink whey and some quick digesting carbs as soon as possible after training,but is it really necessary or just a ploy by protein companies so you run out of protein powder faster,and they can sell more product?

Back in the day people just ate whatever they wanted after training, and in no particular timeframe, and still made amazing gains............they just called it eating.

I have done shakes with water and dextrose or other carbs, as well as just plain old chicken and brown rice and noticed no difference in gains or losses with either.

Too much emphasis today on PW eating and not on the other meals of the day either..............all people talk about is PW and seem to downplay nutrition at other times during the day or night.

Thoughts if any,pro or con?

[QuietBob]

Part of why I do it is from a book called "Nutrient Timing." I'll see if I can did up some quotes on the rationale later.

The biggest reason for me is that when I'm done training I'm not particularly hungry; I'm thirsty more than anything else even though I drink a lot of water while training. I keep the shake in my car and down it right away. Don't have to hurry home and eat right away.

Very interesting topic, Tim.

Bob

[ntrllftr]

I always took my protein shaker to the gym and drank it on the way home. then ate dinner a couple hours later. I changed this past year and waited until I got home and made a high protein meal instead and have a protein drink b4 bed. I have noticed that my muscles look a lot more dense as my progress photos on another site has proved. personally for me I am going to stick with waiting and eating a hard meal instead of a shake PW.

[OptimumJoe]

I sometimes wonder the same thing Tim. I've always been told to have a protein/carb shake post workout so I have. Dieting last year was the first time I didn't have a PW shake and I didn't notice any difference. I was happy not to have a shake, because I was starving. LOL

I really don't see a dramatic difference either way. The only reason I like doing it now, is when off-season comes, I need the shake for the calories in the PW shake and I eat a solid meal 1 hour after.

[Rich]

I have tried it so many different ways. I think there probably is a difference, but I think it's so negligible that I doubt it matters much. Probably way more important to keep the food coming at regular predictable intervals. One thing I do know though is that I need some complex carbs after a back or leg workout. I remember once at my old gym stumbling into the front lobby after doing 10X10 squats, and I thought I was going to pass out. I never buy anything from the bar at the gym, but that day the owner saw me and forced me to have something. I had a protein shake in orange juice, and felt better in about a minute, literally.

Also, I once tried training on an empty stomach. REALLY bad idea for me. It was back day, and I just didn't have time for a meal before I left for the gym. I think I got through about half the workout when I just had to lie down on the floor and wait for merciful death.

Anyway, as I said, I think it's the frequency and quality of your meals that matter, not so much the timing with training. I do believe I need to eat about 30 minutes before I train, and within about 15 minutes after, but only because of how I feel if I don't.

I really think too many bodybuilders today overthink the diet. I've been guilty of that in the past, but I'm so much more relaxed about it now. Eat alot, eat often, don't get too fat. That's it.

[mrky03]

I'm like everyone else, I've been using a post workout protein shake for yrs. and I really can't say for certain that it makes a lot of difference! About the only supplement that I've ever used that does make a noticeable difference is creatine!

I don't take a lot of supplements but I do use whey protein and like everyone else I've read all the pros and cons of the differences between whey isolates, concentrates, milk protein isolates, casein, etc. It all gets very confusing and very expensive!
It just seems to me that the supplement company's want to make us think that without taking all these products that we will somehow be short changing ourselves!

I say keep it simple eat well and train hard!

[mrbeefy]

Two things have worked for me.

Dr Chris Mohr suggests 8 ozs of non fat chocolate milk due to it's 1:3 protein /carb balance. It always worked well for me, but I have concerns about lactoes inolerance and stuff like that. After I drink it within a few hours, i feel kind of bloated and crampy in my lower intestines. But RECOVERY wise, it works well.

I'cew also used Endurox whoch you can pick up at GNC, etc. Works pretty well.

I woek out in the evening so I need to get this down, and then get my evening meal(s) in before bed.

[cuts280]

Tim, you are so right that the emphasis has shifted from wholesome solid meals to more of whey proteins, mrp's, rtd's bars etc which totally sucks. Back then when i was following Max-Ot training i strictly adhered to their training and nutrition strategies in which majority of your meals compromised of protein shakes.....Most of the times i used to have upset stomach and i used to never feel full.Also talk about the expenses. From the past three months i have enlisted to the services of DC (DOUG) and majority of my meals consist of solid meals with the exception of postworkout shake. About an hour after that iam back pounding on a solid meal. Quite frankly speaking eating so many solid meals initially was a pain in the ass but the gains i have made over the last three months have made me realise otherwise. No matter what anyone says I strongly believe that there ain't no substitute for wholesome solid meals.......period.

[RUBICON19]

My newest experiment has been to sip a drink DURING my workouts consisting of 40 grams of carbs from Dextrose + 40 grams of whey. So far, so good. Agter this I will have a solid meal 30 minutes later.

[beckie]

For me personally PWO is important because I lose muscle VERY easily. At the moment I am drinking Xtend during my w/o and then afterwards having a shake which is mainly protein. About an hour after I hit about 40-50g carbs with a less protein.
I have given up bars completely due to the chemical taste and would do so for the pp as well but I don't want to spend my whole day in the kitchen! I have also had to experiment with protein powder due to my 'delicate' stomach but Layne advised me to try a hydrolysed whey as it is less likely to upset me.

[Sal Paradise]

What I have found to work for me is a simple protein shake after the workout.
Not so much because it's a shake but to get something in me after the workout.
Typically, I will have food and/or a smaller shake before working out. Most times it's food just before I leave work at 5 - 5:30.
Then I'm in the gym at 6 and workout till 7:30 or 8. When i get home I have a shake, I live 5 minutes at the most from either gym I go to so it's very close.
The #1 reason for the shake is that it has been 3 hours since I ate and I just finished working out.
Unfortunately I do not feel like eating a solid food meal just after I busted my gut in the gym.
Even if my wife has the food prepared or I have leftovers from during the day I just can't stomach food that soon after I workout.
Much like you Tim before you workout. The solid food just messes with me.
So I have the shake and then 30-60 minutes later I will have settled in and eat a solid meal.

As far as the type of shake - after my last thread - I am sticking to simply protein. The extra carbs just make me feel bloated and it seems no one can really be 1000% sure it is absolutely necessary.

That's my take and reasoning on the Post workout nutrition - how about Pre-workout nutrition?

But maybe that's another thread.


Good topic Tim and if I remember correctly you had another thread some time back about the over-emphasis on PWO shakes, etc.
If the rest of the meals were looked at with as much scrutiny as the PWO I think we would find a lesser need for such things.

Just because a persons PWO shake is set up with perfect ratio of this and that doesn't negate the need for paying close attention to the rest of the diet the rest of the day.

[RUBICON19]

ntrllftr said:

I always took my protein shaker to the gym and drank it on the way home. then ate dinner a couple hours later. I changed this past year and waited until I got home and made a high protein meal instead and have a protein drink b4 bed. I have noticed that my muscles look a lot more dense as my progress photos on another site has proved. personally for me I am going to stick with waiting and eating a hard meal instead of a shake PW.

Did you say NEW PIC's? PICS!!!, PICS!!!, PICS!!!

#offtopic3cp# Sorry

[tiffany]

Because of my schedule I used a WPI, no carbs before and after my workouts but then focused on whole foods for the rest of the day until bedtime when I had another shake, this time a slow digesting protein. I was up at 4:30 am, at the gym by 5 am, work out and cardio done by 6:30am, home, showered, kids up get them going, showers, breakfast, drop them off at school and then off to work for me. I usually got there 15-20 minutes early and had some egg whites/egg/spinach and then some oatmeal before I had to be in my office at 9 am. I would pack all my meals (security officers used to tease me cause my lunch bag was sooooo big ;D) but always had an extra shake on hand cause I never knew when I would be stuck in a meeting. Now that I cannot train, I still rely on WPI as I cannot stand for long and it takes me so long to get anything done I would be in the kitchen all day. I also don't think I could eat enough whole foods to get the amount of calories/protein I need and still be able to move ;D

[Tim Wescott]

Damn,this thread took off, and got some great feedback from you all.

One thing that I do like about the shakes is simply the convience.......at times,like Jeremy alluded to,I just do not want food period,but nothing is more anabolic than good wholesome bodybuilding type foods.

I truly noticed no difference at all betwen shakes and solid food and would carry chicken & rice with me in a container and eat it almost immediately after training........again,shakes are easier though just because of the convience.

I think the PW shake is mostly hype and as long as you ingest something with good quality protein,regardless of what it is,you`ll be OK !!

At times recently,I would have a shake without carbs,and still noticed no muscle losses.

Don`t beleive the hype !!

[Vikingjoe93]

This is a great post guys and girls.

When i first started lifting weights i bought every magazine i could get my hands on. And every magazine i read told me i should be drinking a protein shake right after i worked out. Sounded like solid advice. Little did i know at the time that most supplement companies own or in some type of way support the magazines. So it's agreat PR to push your product (whey powders, and other things) in your magazine.

What's really crazy is i read the max-ot training method on AST sports science website awhile back. If you read the whole workout the writer bashes other supplement companies for this same thing, then near the end of the training/ workout log the author starts pushing AST science products ;D That's just crazy ;D

[youngblood]

Seems that I've pretty much done anything after a workout in regards to food. When I first started out, tried Myoplex and that didn't really have any huge benefits, but I did think it allowed me to not be catabolic. Then I started just having a can of tuna, with a little seasoning on it. Dull, but it also worked but nothing spectacular.
Somewhere along the way, I remember starting to have 2 cans of tuna and something like 8-12oz of Grape juice post-workout. Odd mix, for sure, but it worked for what I wanted it to do. Then, I think I read Milos Sarcev's "Fed-Ex Drink" and decided I would try that. Then I moved to "my version" where I would have a huge amount of dextrose and some whey protein. Sought out the best versions of both, but nothing spectacular.
After that, I used Nitromine pills which worked great and convenient to just pop some pills and you're done and then you ingest solid food around 35min later. I also had a prototype pill that Dr. Scott Connelly is producing courtesy of MindSpin over at Getbig.com. That worked very well, and I noticed I got a tremendous pump on those. When those pills ran out though, I switched to my old standby....KFC!!!!
I'm in full agreement with Tim, Rich and the other posters here when they say it's not about what you consume. It's more just that you DO CONSUME SOMETHING post workout. Time the meals well throughout the day, and you will be fine.

[Sal Paradise]

admin said:

I think the PW shake is mostly hype and as long as you ingest something with good quality protein,regardless of what it is,you`ll be OK !!

I remember reading something or seeing a comment made about post workout shakes pertaining to Ronnie Coleman.
I think someone asked what ratios of what he used and the simple answer was he eats.
He gets done working out and simply eats another meal.
No PWO shakes at all but just whatever food he was scheduled to eat at that particular timeof his diet.
Well if his amount of muscle is satified with such a regimen then I'm sure my little arse would be fine with it too.

Like Tim said - just get some quality protein and that will be sutiable for most of us.
Of course not one thing is right for everyone but for the general populace I'm sure itis fine.

[OptimumJoe]

I read on Intensemucle where some of the guys like, Troponin, say PW shake isn't anymore important the your other meals of the day.

It all boils down to consistency...we all know that. LOL

[mrbeefy]

Sounds like an awful lot of votes for " JUST EAT!"

I'm up for that!

Plus, think of how much you'll save on supp's, etc.!

[masterschamp]

I've ALWAYS been a "just eat" guy.