When to eat?

Hi there -

I've heard rumors about there being an 'ideal' timeframe to eat a meal after a workout.  Any truth to that and if so, what's the timeframe?  Thanks! 

Well.... a common wisdom is to have something (200-300 cal), with 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein. Research on it is somewhat in disagreement. I can't seem to find the links :(, but from what I remembered it mainly helps people who exercise multiple times a day, or day after day at high intensity. Think profesionaly athletes. This is not really from studies, but from what I read on different forums. Some people say it helps control appetite if they have something right after vigourous work out. So they do not devour everything in sight an hour later.

For more information try googling "recovery nutrition" or "recovery drinks". Be warned there is a lot of Marketing stuff out there, so take it with a grain of salt.

On a personal note if I do a bike ride that is 2 hours or more I have 16 oz of low fat chocolate milk right after. Not sure how much it really helps, but it has right amount of calories/ratio (depends on a brand) and it tastes good. :)

UD

mmm... some people think that you have to wait 30 mins... but thats just for purposes of not getting sick I think, same with waiting 30 mins before working out. Timelines I don't think are very important. I don't think eating right after or waiting 30 mins will hinder your results. I think they calories burn on site and therefor aren't really effected by what happens afterwards. but... I could be wrong... the whole system of asking this type of question on a forum is a bunch of people who have completely different ideas that will tell you there way or the hyway. But it's whatever your comfortable with really...

The P90X workout claims that you should eat within the hour after a rigorous workout. It makes sense to me - your body's just lost a lot of energy and needs to recover.