Maintaining a healthy lifestyle comes down to two basic components, exercise, and diet. Conceptualizing your body as a machine that required fuel to move and function is a way to really simplify this process. Consuming the right foods for your level of activity and exercise is essential to maintaining your health or losing weight. Knowing what to eat, when to eat it, and how many times to eat it are the first steps to a successful diet plan. Here are some ways that you can get started on the right foot.
Pre-Workout
Eating properly before the workout is arguably the hardest part. While you should be sure to eat at least an hour and a half before you exercise, what exactly it is you should eat is where things get tricky. Now while you exercise, you are burning primarily carbohydrates. Ingesting carbs is the best way to fuel up for a hard workout.
If, however, your goal is to lose weight rather than maintain it you should try to consume a minimal amount of carbs. After your source of carbs has been depleted and burned in your body to fuel your work out, your body starts to draw energy from your stored fat cells. Initiating your body to begin to draw from your stored fat is the most effective way to lose weight quickly. Drink plenty of water, choose healthy carbs like whole grains, avoid sugar entirely, and consume unsaturated fats.
During Workout
There isn’t a lot that you should be doing during your workout, aside from the actual workout obviously. Throughout your exercises, in between switching stations or intervals such as breaks between sets, you should be drinking moderate amounts of water consistently.
Most workout sessions don’t go over an hour, however, if your particular plan happens to exceed an hour in length, such as conditioning or MMA training, you should consider eating small snacks such as a banana, that will replenish your energy stores as well as your muscles. Always be sure that you are taking small breaks in between workouts, allow your body some time to adjust and rest to properly build muscle.
Post-Workout
After the workout, your goal is to replenish your body with all of the essential nutrients, electrolytes, and fluids that were just expelled from yourself during the exercise. Eating carbs afterward is not as important as it is in the pre-workout, but you should still consume a moderate amount afterward.
Protein helps restore and build up muscle mass after you have just finished working to destroy them. The goal is to break muscle tissue down so that it can rebuild itself stronger than it was before. You should be sure that you are including things such as potassium and sodium, two essential molecules for muscle movement, as they have just been used and burned in large amounts.
Following these tips will help you realize your full potential for maintaining a healthy body and mind throughout your day to day routine.
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