Post workout meal

Should I eat a post-workout meal?

All i have is a protein shake (isopure 50g) nothing else.

My friend says that I need to eat some carbs togeather with the protein so that the body assimilates it better, and also take additional aminoacids supplaments.

is this necessary, will it show improvement in strength development?

After the shake, I usually wait 1,5h to eat a large meal at dinner.

Take some carbs at the same time and you should be good. 50g of protein may even be a bit too much

You are taking 50g of proteins which are amino acids, especially branch chained amino acids. The supplemental forms in tablet/pill are very small dosages.

If anything enzymes would make more sense.

I have heard dextrose is a good sugar to ingest with whey protein to get into the body quickly.

I've tried just about every possible post-workout shake concoction, both pre-packaged and home brewed, that you can imagine.

50g of protein is good after you work out, but like the guys are saying, taking the protein by itself won't help very much. Do yourself a favor and mix it in with 1% chocolate milk. 16 oz will probably be better than 8. The BOYZZZZ at Harvard Medical determined that 1% chocolate milk is one of the best post workout supplements you can drink!!! GOTTA love Harvard.

The sugar from the chocolate milk will a) help create an insulin response in your body, which will promote nutrient uptake and in turn accelerate healing and growth; and b), keep your body from using the protein as energy or to replenish glycogen stores.

There's only one thing that might be better, and it costs more money, so if I were you I'd use the chocolate milk. This "other thing" is called Vitargo, and used improperly it won't do a damn thing except waste 40 bucks. The only way to use it effectively is to make your post workout drink with 1.5-2 scoops of vitargo, 30-50g protein, and creatine if you use it. Mix and drink around 30 minutes after INTENSE workouts. Not easy workouts, and not moderate workouts. When you push yourself really, really close to the edge, use the Vitargo. Don't use a knockoff, they don't work. I've tried them. The real Vitargo is hard to describe... I could literally FEEL the nutrients in my arteries and veins. I could FEEL my muscles re-fill with glycogen. I seriously almost forgot to eat after my workout because my body felt like it had fully recovered. It was ridiculous. I was kicking my own ass 3 times a week to the point where I was laying on my back trying not to puke, and the Vitargo was the only thing that could restore the sugar in my muscles fast enough to let me keep up that pace without overtraining. It has to be felt to be believed.

It says you can use it pre-workout, but it will screw you up. Don't do it, that's just marketing. Use it post-workout only after truly grueling workouts for maximum cost-effectiveness. The chocolate milk can take care of you just fine with the easier workouts.

Edit: The amino acid supplements can help with strength, I am pretty sure Gregor uses them, but until you really get up there in the advanced stuff it's not worth the money. Plenty of protein will do just fine. Also, make SURE you have a whole food post workout meal an hour or so after your shake. You may not feel like it, but that shake's only going to feed your body for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes at the most.

Is vitargo l-arginine?

Lol, no. Vitargo is a special type of waxy maize starch. It's super dense, so it sinks to the bottom of the stomach and enters the blood stream faster than any other source of carbohydrates. It is unbelievable. When you pour the scoop into the water, if you do it at a reasonable pace you can watch it fall through the water about as fast as a rock does. Vitargo is no joke.

I cannot agree with the recommendation of choclate mile PWO, a 'reblooming' recommendation comming from the 'old school' training camp, a camp that more times than not is just outdated and uninformed. (at least in this aspect - nutrition and pwo)

Yes, the choclate mile contains sugar. Yes, spiking insulin can be done with simple sugar. Yes, we want to spike insulin for glycogen replenishment. (Although there are other ways to do so) But there are other factors that should be taken into consideration - milk is very allerganic - both its protein and the lactose in it.

Also, from glycogen replenishment POV, it is far from optimal to use just a simple sugar like in milk choclate.

Notice that this aproach is recommended usualy by big, heavy guys with bad skin condition, double digit body fat and other allergenic symptoms.

Summery: milk choclate PWO can be used for glycogen replenishment, but:

A. It is highly allergenic and can cause a more harm than good.

B. It is not an optimal agent for post workout glycogen replenishment.

C. Even post workout and taking into consideration insulin sensitivity, it can cause fat gain.

Ido.

BTW, reading one article about some use of a certain agent under a certain situation means close to nothing, even if it was a good article. I can do a research on a 'cheese and potato chips' post workout use and show their effectiveness over other methods quite easly and most 'internet experts' will not realize the problems in this research article.

Milk choclate is junk food - especialy one that comes from a pasteurized and homogenized milk plus artificial cacao plus white sugar. I am sorry, putting this kind of junk into your body is not a smart practice, in my opinion.

Ido Portal said:

I cannot agree with the recommendation of choclate mile PWO, a 'reblooming' recommendation comming from the 'old school' training camp, a camp that more times than not is just outdated and uninformed. (at least in this aspect - nutrition and pwo)

Yes, the choclate mile contains sugar. Yes, spiking insulin can be done with simple sugar. Yes, we want to spike insulin for glycogen replenishment. (Although there are other ways to do so) But there are other factors that should be taken into consideration - milk is very allerganic - both its protein and the lactose in it.

Also, from glycogen replenishment POV, it is far from optimal to use just a simple sugar like in milk choclate.

Notice that this aproach is recommended usualy by big, heavy guys with bad skin condition, double digit body fat and other allergenic symptoms.

Summery: milk choclate PWO can be used for glycogen replenishment, but:

A. It is highly allergenic and can cause a more harm than good.

B. It is not an optimal agent for post workout glycogen replenishment.

C. Even post workout and taking into consideration insulin sensitivity, it can cause fat gain.

Ido.

BTW, reading one article about some use of a certain agent under a certain situation means close to nothing, even if it was a good article. I can do a research on a 'cheese and potato chips' post workout use and show their effectiveness over other methods quite easly and most 'internet experts' will not realize the problems in this research article.

Milk choclate is junk food - especialy one that comes from a pasteurized and homogenized milk plus artificial cacao plus white sugar. I am sorry, putting this kind of junk into your body is not a smart practice, in my opinion.

One thing that the allergen camp doesn't take into account is that some of us just don't have any noticeable allergenic reaction. I personally went off of all dairy products for 3 months straight just to see how I felt, and I personally feel and perform better with milk in my diet. I am not even going to try to claim that I am in any way representative of the majority, or even a large minority. I don't know how widespread bad reactions to milk are. This is just my personal experience.

As for the sugar, I definitely agree that you're right, it's not optimal, but it does work well for those who don't have problems with milk. I suppose 1% chocolate goat milk would be quite a lot bit better, but that's hard to find and for some hard to drink. I honestly don't know what the optimal natural food solution is in terms of a PWO shake. What do you think?

The whole food approach that I know of that works well is a baked potato with lean meat.

I know the chocolate cow's milk isn't the best thing, but it is still very functional for those who don't have lactose or milk protein issues, and it is by far the cheapest solution I know of. Less than half the cost of the cheapest whole foods or supplements I can find here in Atlanta or out in Cali. It's cheap, and it worked well for me when I used it. I haven't done so recently, haven't been using much of any PWO besides some protein mixed with whole milk and a few pieces of fruit for the sugar. I am very interested in knowing more about what you consider the optimal post workout feeding plan, and I think I can assume I speak for the rest of us as well.

I am lactose intolerant, so I generally avoid milk, unless it has been treated with lactase, but I think what we want is the "chocolate milk effect." My answer, since I also try to avoid casein (for reason that I read in a book that it can promote tumor growth, and I am a cancer patient) is to use whey protein and some form of fast acting carb. I would like to get some straight maltodextrin, but I cannot find any locally. It is available on-line. So right now, I might mix it with Gatorade, which is cheap, but not very good, as it has some junk (food coloring) and fructose, a sugar I would prefer to only have from whole fruit. So sometimes I use a banana, or powdered oatmeal.

Practically speaking, since I am not a competing athlete, and exercise after work, I usually just eat a meal afterwards, and don't worry too much about an after-work shake. At that, I just try to eat good quality foods, and this seems to work out fine. The only time I will drink a shake is when I workout and don't have a mealtime right afterwards (like Saturday.)

I am not a fan of dairy, working with clients over many years allowed me to get a sense of how many people are intolerent to dairy products. I have to say, it is rare that you do not see/sense results when taking someone off dairy completely.

Many people do not even notice the bad effects dairy has on them. Most will live with a constant immune response (allergy) and would not notice it at all. But... The price will be paid one day, let me assure you. It is simply far from optimal health to live like that, I am not even talking about optimal performance..

That being said, I am not a whole food radical. On the contrary, I am known to use heavy supplementation in some cases. My aproach to PWO supplementation is a spesificly tailored aproach, taking into acount the type, duration, loads used, CNS demands and other factors of the activity in question. Optimal PWO supplementation is not expensive (Compared to good food) but it is an art and requires some knowledge in order to be tailored correctly.

Ido.

I do seem to be one of the few people who truly doesn't seem to see any positive effects from non-dairy diets, but I'd like to know more about what you do for post workout. I didn't mean to imply you were all about whole foods, if you got that impression. I'm just not sure what you have seen work well. There seems to be a wide variety of PWO methods that appear to give good results and I am curious about your approach, since you obviously have pretty superior performance I'm all about trying something that is better than what I currently do.

Vitargo sounds interesting. Not that my wallet can afford it. I've heard dextrose is pretty cheap. So is whey though I'm pretty much too broke to buy even whey now. :cry:

Ido, being that we live in America, and more than likely Slizzardman and I inherit the Northern European genes to digest lactose is probably why we don't have a problem. There was a time when I rarely, if at all drank milk. Compared to now, nothing is different. Except that I prefer whole to lowfat and find it useful because I have a limited food budget for now. Milk is cheap here in America. I'd prefer to get my hands on grassfed cow milk from a local farmer but well, that hasn't happened yet. Grassfed milk is just ridiculously expensive in the store (

One of the problems with the standard chocolate milk is it has twice the amount of carbohydrates as regular milk. I'd like to see a study between regular milk (whole/low and nonfat) vs the sweetened chocolate milk as to which one provides better glycogen replenishment. One of the pro's of the chocolate milk was that it was easy to get kids to drink it like other sugary sports drinks. Milk contains galactose which breaks down partially into fructose. It's better than just regular fructose but we don't need to be putting too much fructose into the liver as there is a finite amount that can be stored before it just gets converted to fat.

Milk+lactaid capsules ain't a bad idea and is affordable compared to Lactaid milk.

I have done my research on the strongmen of old who were the milk giants. Higher body fat percentages than I'd like to be. I tried to go off in October and it was disastrous due to the fact that I ended up just not ingesting nearly enough calories and was so low on energy that I wouldn't have enough reserves to workout really. I realize there is an acclimation period for going to fat vs carb as an energy source but it just isn't going to happen right now. Ce la vie.

In my personal experience, milk has been awesome for lean (and other) mass gain, and quite good for performance, but yes acne is a problem. My skin is bad to begin with tho. Eggs are also highly allergenic, yet are great food if you don't have those problems. Lactose intolerance is a separate issue, which clearly precludes some people from using most forms of dairy.

People, as I have written, your 'feeling good on dairy' is a subjective thing, perheps you can feel a lot better and also perform a lot better. Most people can live with dairy nicely, but they still have a lot of silent inflammation, allergic responses and other issues that are not full blown. (at the moment)

Also, it is rare to see someone using dairy products and carrying a optimal body fat level. (Male 6-7%, female 12-14%)

Dairy makes most people hold too much water, have a puffy look, skin problems, bad distribuition of body fat over the

body, and other external hints that may be subtle, but still suggest this person is not eating according to his genetic makeup.

Down the line, it is your choice to make - drink a liquid that naturaly was never intended for human use and suffer the consequences or eat according to your body's demands.

Ido.

This is interesting Ido, I drink several liters of milk daily but right now, because of what you have said, I am thinking of testing a period without milk to see any differences. How long time do you think I would have to go non dairy to see results? Or are we talking long term stuff here?

This is what I looked like at 8-9% bodyfat on my ship, BW 205 I believe. This is just me breathing, not flexing. I was drinking a minimum of two 12 oz glasses of milk per meal. Granted, it was that weird chemically kept-fresh stuff that stays forever until it gets cold again, and I haven't got a clue whether it was whole milk or reduced fat. It wasn't skim, that's for sure. I'm just posting this so you can have some idea of what I looked like. Having said that, what are the long term consequences you are worried about?

Ido, I am honestly curious about what you do for post workout nutrition. I don't know anything about the Paleo approach, and I would love to know what you do, because you have incredible ability and body composition.

I think this discussion on milk is interesting, but it might be more helpful to concentrate on what to use PWO instead of milk, other than repeating that milk is not even close to optimal. Ido, you say that milk can cause a "bad distribution of body fat over the body." Are you implying that drinking milk causes you to gain fat in places differently than other foods?

According to the biosignature module a healthy person has an certain optimal ratio between various fat storage sites in the body. I have never actualy seen a perfect biosig test on someone who uses dairy, that is my own experience.

Slizzerman, I will not go into my specific post workout formula perscriotion, but I do suggest you educate yourself on the matter. A lot has been written about that by great experts in nutrition science like Charles Poliquin, Mauro Di Pasquale MD, Eric Serrano MD, etc...

Instead of listening to some fat weightlifter with no nutritional understanding/background, a macho aproach and a body fat percentage higher than the age of my grandpa, I suggest you start reading material from people who has been experimenting and researching post workout supplementation for many years.

One can start with Robb Wolf's recommendations on the subject for good, sound, basic PWO, and advance further on in case of need. (higher metabolic and CNS demands)

Ido.

Ido,

You've said that you don't like dairy products but from your blog I did read that you eat cottage cheese. I was just wondering what makes cottage cheese acceptable over milk. Is it less allergenic?

Cheers

Slizzardman,

You seem to be making some common leaps in logic here. These terms are Googleable: false cause, confusing correlation and causation, and over-generalization.

I know very little specifics of your age, exercise and training history, and daily physical demands at the time of the photo. My experiences with professional athletes, circus performers, dancers and most 20-year-old athletes suggests that you might consider that you'd achieved that level of fitness in spite of your diet, and not because of it.

Also, I have some lifter acquaintances who swear milk is better than steroids for mass gain.

best,

jason

Yes, Jason, milk has been very popular for mass gain for decades.

jasonmstein said:

Slizzardman,

You seem to be making some common leaps in logic here. These terms are Googleable: false cause, confusing correlation and causation, and over-generalization.

I know very little specifics of your age, exercise and training history, and daily physical demands at the time of the photo. My experiences with professional athletes, circus performers, dancers and most 20-year-old athletes suggests that you might consider that you'd achieved that level of fitness in spite of your diet, and not because of it.

Also, I have some lifter acquaintances who swear milk is better than steroids for mass gain.

best,

jason

False cause may be at work. Not having affordable access to blood tests, DEXA, and whatever other tests there may be to determine the effect of my diet on my training results keeps me from having a medical explanation that is written in stone. I'm quite aware of the difference between correlation and causation, and I am definitely not over-generalizing. I have been very careful to say that my results are not indicative of the general population, as I know there are many people who have allergenic issues with some of my food choices.

At the time of the photo, I ate what my ship had. Meat, potatoes, lots of fruit, sometimes pasta, which I ate whenever available, and milk. I always had milk, like I said. 24 oz minimum with each meal. I usually had 8 oz of meat since that's what they'd serve, and sometimes seconds because they liked me Eggs to order in the morning, 4 eggs sunny side up for me. Fruit, cottage cheese, and more or less tasteless veggies, but I ate them anyways. I guess my diet was pretty clean, but it isn't much different than now, except that I have less cottage cheese now and my veggies taste better. And I have 3 eggs in the morning I did occasionally indulge in rather large amounts of cookie dough, and gained body fat accordingly I'd do that for a week or two at a time 3-4 times a year. Life gets boring on the ship, and I do LOVE cookie dough! Once I ate a clod of dough the size of a football. It was ridiculous, and my poo smelled like chocolate chip cookies for two days straight. At the time of the photo there was no cookie dough indulgence.

My exercise history is that I've been active my whole life. been in the pool since I was several months old, I used to run for fun in pre-school and elementary school during recess because I liked the wind in my face. I liked to go out into the woods and try to build log cabins, which necessitated me lifting trees, and I'd always go for the biggest one I could move. I bmx biked since I was like 6. When I was 7 I started going to the YMCA and I rowed on the concept IIC(might have been B, but I think C) rower, did pushups, situps, and pullups. When I was 9 I started using the machines as well, and when I was 12 I started working with free weights. In the summer before 4th grade I ran a 6:07 mile, tied with this russian kid Victor. I couldn't lose him and he couldn't lose me. Right before I turned 13 I was really fast on the rower and my dad wanted to see how fast, so we got witnesses from the staff and I rowed a 6:38 mile, which turned out to be some sort of record. Unfortunately it got broken two days later by some kid who did it in 6:08, a substantial improvement. Still, I feel pretty good about that. I was just having fun, I always liked the loud noise Never trained specifically for it. I stopped working out when I was 13 because I hated my dad and I had to be there with him since I obviously couldn't go on my own, but I continued to BMX bike and always raced around with local kids. Never did any formal competition, which was probably a mistake. I played football in 9th grade and got a compression fracture in t6-t7 and was told I probably shouldn't play football until I was out of high school after that, just in case. It didn't bother me, I just knew something felt weird in my back. Let's see... I wrestled but didn't really get into it, I was too nervous and again dad pushed me into it. After that it was all biking and climbing trees and chopping wood for fun until I got to be 17, and I started fighting. In the gym I primarily trained for power and speed, and I trained almost exclusively for reflexes outside of that. I conditioned my body for impact from head to toe, and I conditioned my hands with iron hand training. I had a bone spur taken out of my right knee right before my first professional fight, and after that I got distracted with video games. I still worked out, but it was more for fun than anything.

When I was 20 I decided I wanted to be a Navy SEAL so I started the 12 weeks to BUD/S workout. After that I was in the Navy, where everything was focused on lots of pushups, pullups, situps, etc. After boot camp I worked with weights as well as thrice weekly PT sessions in the early morning, which were full of sprints, milers, and pushups/pullups/bodyweight or partner squats, bear crawling, rope climbing, etc. Right before boot camp I tore the fascia in my left wrist. Too many pushups with my wrists all pumped up from pull ups first. OOPS. Took a year and a half for that pain to go away. Had that all through BUDS. I ran, I swam, I lifted, and I did calisthenics. BUDS was what it was, all logs, IBS, paddling, swimming, lots of cold water and sand, LOTS of calisthenics, lots of extra calisthenics for punishment. Under the log I injured my brachial plexus and my left shoulder lost all functionality. I faked my way through physical evaluations and continued on with class 246(started with 245), doing almost everything with my right arm. Not very bright. I couldnt handle any pressure on my back, couldn't even wear an empty back pack without my arm going numb and limp within 10 seconds, so there was no way for me to continue. On my ship I started my rehab with deadlifts and front squats, because it was all my shoulder could handle. Over the next six months I had worked to a full routine, with the exception of behind the neck lifts. I worked the heavy bag, did heavy partials, sprinted up 20-30 degree inclines for 30 yards, trained for jumping far and high, sort of unintentionally did front levers and stuff playing around, I didn't know what they were... i was just goofing around. I trained to fight with my buddy, and after I got out I trained hard for a year, got into peak condition again, and then I met my ex out in Cali. After that it was just strength maintenance. Now I'm ramping up again, slowly, but this time I'm focusing on moving my body in space and maximizing my strength. That's my training history

Life gets boring on the ship, and I do LOVE cookie dough!

Hah. Mmmm. However, this solidifies in my mind that you are a grade-C nutball somewhat. It's ok, I like cookie dough too.

Anyways, in the military, quite often there is the eat everything you see diet and still lose weight because of how many calories you are expending. You only get 3 meals, so eat up.

Slizzerman,

I believe you are a man with good intentions, espcialy posting here on the forum, but from your post it is easy to see that whatever good results you had, you should not directly correlate them to your habits.

When one is posting on the forum, you should take that into acount. You are providing advice, as unprofessional and easy going as it may be.

Demus, I have been eating cottage cheese on and off, in small quantities only, but over the last couple of years I have taken it out of my diet. I have taken it out even though my performance was excellent, my bodyfat always below 7% and other markers of good performance, in search of an even better one. I have noticed good results. I carry less water weight, I am ripped and dry and fatigue is something I rarely need to deal with.

That being said, if someone HAVE to have dairy, cottage cheese from grass fed cows is the product to use. It is low in lactose and carbs, slow digesting protein. But, every dairy product has a bad insulin curve, even cottage cheese, and the protein is still allerganic and can offer problems.

Ido.

Mr. Portal, you mention that the protien in milk is allergenic. Is that the whey or the casein, or both? That is, I avoid casein, but I use whey, but may re-consider.