Carb fans will love this news!
I’d rather have a smoothie than a steak salad because I love carbs! Here’s some great news for carbs lovers who lift weights. You need to eat carbs to grow and repair muscle if you want to get stronger. “Following workouts, you may actually need more carbs than protein, with most studies showing that post-workout foods and drinks with a 3:1-to-4:1 ratio of carbs-to-protein are ideal for exercise recovery. That means, for every gram of protein you consume following a workout, you likely need three to four times as many grams of carbs” (1).
In other words, if you have 20 grams of protein, you should eat 60 to 80 grams of carbs after your workout. These carbs, in conjunction with insulin, pushes the amino acids from protein into the muscles (1). So don’t feel guilty eating extra carbs after lifting or a hard cardio session; you need it. On days you don’t lift heavy or do crazy cardio, keep your carbohydrate intake lower so you don’t grow your fat cells since extra carbs are additional calories.
Source: Fetters, K. Aleisha. “5 Things You should do after every workout.” Blog Post Type. My Fitness Pal. May 3, 2017 published. Web. May 29, 2017 accessed.
Photo: sushi. Too bad Japanese restaurants use white, bleached rice, otherwise, sushi would be a healthy meal with lean protein, good vegetable fat from avocado, and carbohydrates from grains.
