I just got back from an awesome workout and I thought I would take this time to answer a questions I recently got about what is best thing to eat after a workout .

This question is from Natalia. “My question is with respect to post-exercise nutrition. I frequently play tennis at night and finish my game around 10 pm. My games typically last for an hour and a half or a couple of hours, and given that I finish my workout/game so late, what sort of post-exercise meal would you suggest?”

The short answer to this questions is to keep it as liquid and as simple as can be . You do not want to be heading to bed on a full stomach . That is only going to bog you down and leave you with a poor night’s sleep, which means you will wake up in the morning feeling terrible. What you want to do is go to bed feeling slightly hungry – not starving, but slightly hungry. This will allow your body to spend its energy on all the regeneration that it has to do during the night. During the night is when growth hormone is released and the body’s cells are repaired. If you have too much food before you go to bed, that energy is taken away from the repair process and is used for the digestive process, and that is not what you want.

So, having said that, what I am having after my workout is a green juice . In it I have kale, collard greens, parsley, lemon, apple, and carrot. A lot of people might say, where’s your protein? Where is your carbohydrate? Well, it’s all in there. Green vegetables, anything green is your highest source of amino acids and amino acids make up proteins. You can also find this by following a raw food diet. So I am getting my meal in a liquid form, a very simple form in amino acids, so my body can assimilate them very quickly. Also, there are very simple sugars because any time you juice, you remove the pulp which results in a tall glass of simple sugars that can reach the muscle cells that much faster to replenish your glycogen stores. That is very important because with post-exercise nutrition there is a window of opportunity of about 30 minutes where you need to get something in, and preferably liquid. So the sooner you can get the liquid into your body the better – first of all water, and then simple sugars back into your body in a liquid form are you best options .

For the athletes that I work with I really try to make sure that they are getting in some type of sports drink , preferably a home-made, natural sports drink right after they come off of the field or the ice, or out of the gym – whatever it may be. Remember the crucial time – 30 minutes. During the 30 minutes after you finish your workout, you need to get some liquid nutrition into your body. It’s going to give you the energy you need to recover a lot faster .
A green smoothie is another option if you don’t own a juicer . A smoothie that I often make after a lot of my workouts or games is banana, a scoop of almond butter or other nut butter. I’ll throw in some raw cacao, some flax seed oil or some fish oil to get in some healthy fats. I’ll throw in some ground flax seeds to get in some good fiber and bulk, and I’ll blend it all up with water or some rice milk. The end result is beautiful. You can throw in some hemp seeds for a nifty source of protein, or even whey protein if you use that – whatever is good for you. In this smoothie you get the amino acids, the health fats, and the carbohydrates that your body needs right after a workout .

So, I hope that answers your question Natalia, and for anyone else who was wondering what to eat after a workout or wondering what to eat late at night after a game. Liquid nutrition is the best, right? You don’t want to go to bed on a full stomach . Keep it simple, keep it light, and make sure you pack in quality nutrition and you’re going to recover a lot faster and your performance is going to go through the roof with a high energy diet.