Exercising and eating

Back when I had a personal trainer, he always made sure I was eating right before after right after I exercised.  He reasoning was beforehand (mostly carbs) in order to create energy to do the work, and after (mostly protein) due to nature (his story: back in caveman days, a hunter strenuously hunted his prey and ate it right away, so that was incorporated into genes, to want nutrition after a workout).

Do any of you have anything to back that up?  I'm reconsidering everything he had told me since I never lost weight with him and I've been able to lose weight on my own using cues from this site. 

I don't know about the protein thing, but I used to compete gymnastics, and usually the night before a meet we were supposed to eat lots of carbs (like pasta or starchy vegetables) because it's supposed to give you extra energy. I don't think that eating carbs immediately before a work out (like 60 min or less) is really helpful though because your stomach generally takes a day to digest food, and you can't really use the nutrients from food until your body has had time to extract those nutrients...

Also, if you're eating extra calories, whether it's before or after a work out, it's still extra calories. If your trainer or you didn't track what you were eating all day, how would either of you have known whether or not you should have eaten before that work out? The carbs and protein (both very calorie dense foods) could have put your calories eaten at maintenance level...

Check out Fitness subforum there are quite a few discussions on this topic. Also for the record in the "old days" (hunter and gather society) hunters came back most often without catching anything and relied on herbs, fruits and vegetables gathered by people who stayed behind.

Here is some good information.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/HQ0 0594_D

http://www.intense-workout.com/post_workout.h tml

http://www.shapefit.com/exercise-questions-pr e-workout-meal.html