[TerryLui]

Hey everyone,
Any suggested recovery foods after long days out?

Probably a bit late to the game on this one but as I’ve been increasing the proportion of veggies and fruit in my diet, I’ve had surprisingly good recovery times?
Not sure if it’s improving general fitness and body durability or nutrition related (bit of both?) but after a couple big days, my recovery was very apparent and I sure would love to keep it consistent/reproduce it regularly!

Thanks!
Terry

Topic

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on September 2, 2019 at 3:47 am #27745

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your question.

Great to hear you have improved your fruit and veg intake. This is one of the first questions I ask all of my Uphill Athletes when Im providing a custom nutrition plan. Most do not achieve the 5 portions of fruit and veg per day. And many are not aware that they do also aid muscle recovery (as well as have superior benefits to health). So I am pleased to hear you have felt an improvement in your recovery as a result. In answer to your question, it will always be a bit of both in terms of increased training and dietary changes, both result in benefits to recovery.

So to answer your first question here are some suggestions of foods for recovery (within 30min-60mins of finishing your big day), ensure to include a source of protein and carbohydrate (approx. 20g protein and 30-50g of carbohydrate depending on session just completed, time to next meal, time until next training session, your individual training goals).

Banana + glass of milk (dairy)
Eggs + slice of toast/rice cakes
Tinned fish + rice cakes/wholegrain crackers/fruit
Fruit + nut butter
Cottage cheese + fruit
Greek yoghurt /protein yoghurt + fruit

Supplements can be used for connivence and an easy way to meet your requirements for recovery;

Recovery shakes
Whey protein + banana
Protein shake
Smoothie made with a powdered protein supplement (pea/soy/vegan blend/whey)
Protein bar

*lists are not exhaustive and all suggestions can be mixed and matched as preferred

(Protein supplements are not ‘bad’ and if you purchase a stand alone protein supplement such as whey, pea, soy, vegan blend with no additional ‘supplements’ added these are more like food ingredients, made from real foods with no side effects to health).

Thanks

Rebecca

[oceandean4life]

oceandean4life on October 20, 2020 at 9:33 am #46086

To be honest, I don`t think that nut butter is about to help recovering.
It does a huge damage to bones.

[russes011]

russes011 on March 8, 2021 at 6:35 am #51708

It’s my understanding that for recovery per se, the timing of carbohydrate intake post workout doesn’t matter too much, if at all, as long as you’re not planning to perform another workout that same day. Meals with adequate (ie workout-load appropriate amounts) carbohydrate between daily work-outs would be plenty to replenish both your liver and muscle glycogen stores.

Also, I don’t think protein consumption immediate post workout is of much use either. Granted, there is a window where muscles will uptake protein more avidly after exercise, but satiating this need (and thereby blunting the training effect) doesn’t necessarily equate to quicker recovery and/or improved performance. A better approach may be to just optimize protein intake in general, which should help recovery as well as a few other nutrition related effects. I believe the current recommendation is 20G of protein every 3 hours throughout the day–the 20G level is a threshold effect, eating more doesn’t directly help recovery per se.

Anyway, someone usually points out how I’m wrong, and upon further reading, they’re right–so this post is more to stimulate discussion.