The Best After-Workout Snacks

When you plan your workouts, you focus on all your pre-workout meals, but what about your post-workout meal? Are you giving it a lot of thought as well? Consuming the right amount of nutrients after working out is as important as eating before the time. 

The Importance of Eating After Workouts

When you do intense training, the muscles use up all the glycogen, leaving your muscles depleted, and even protein is broken down. However, once you complete your exercises, the body tries to rebuild the glycogen to repair and regrow your muscle proteins. 

So, eating the correct nutrients after training helps the body do it faster, and eating carbs to protein is important. It helps lessen muscle protein breakdown while increasing muscle growth and restores glycogen to enhance recovery. 

So, one way of achieving this is to enjoy a natural pre-workout protein, which needs to include protein, fat, and carbs. Having these before your workout helps rebuild the protein and glycogen after exercise. 

You need to eat your post-workout meal within a few hours after exercising but can extend it a bit longer depending on the time you took your protein powder. 

Snacks to Enjoy After Exercising 

It is essential to choose foods that digest easily as it will help promote nutrient absorption. For example, for your carb intake, you can eat sweet potatoes, grains, fruits like a banana or berries, rice, pasta, potatoes, or rice cakes. 

You can enjoy a plant-based protein powder, greek yogurt, eggs, chicken, tuna, protein bar, salmon, or cottage cheese for nutritional protein. Lastly, enjoy nuts, avocado, seeds, nut butter, or a trail mix of dried nuts and fruits for healthy fats.

With a combination of these above food types, you can easily create a meal to provide the nutrients you need after exercising. For example, you can enjoy an egg omelet with some avocado on whole-grain toast. Or make a tuna salad sandwich using whole-grain bread. Eat some crackers and tuna, or enjoy sweet potato with salmon. 

Another great treat is oatmeal with whey protein, banana bread, and almonds. Even cottage cheese with fruits is a treat, while rice crackers topped with peanut butter are also delicious. Nut butters are another wonderful option to include for their mix of healthy fats and proteins. Incorporating healthy organic nut butters in your post-exercise snacks can enhance muscle recovery while adding rich, natural flavors.

Final Thoughts 

As you can see, having an after-workout snack is just as important as a natural pre-workout protein powder bought at a protein shop. But one more thing you should remember: to drink a lot of water. 

You need to do this before and after workouts. When the body is hydrated, it allows for maximizing results working out. It helps if you replenish what you have lost through sweating. Doing this helps with the recovery and performance during your training and afterward.