Most of the research says that the sooner after the workout
you take post workout nutrition, the better. The debatable part is whether it's a must to get it in the form of
liquid sugar or simple carbs + whey and especially when your goal is
maximum fat loss.
A large whole food meal does the job just fine, especially in the context of a 4-5 meals a day nutrition program. You could use whole food or a drink and get great results either way.
How you approach post-workout nutrition is going to depend
a lot on what your goal is at any given time. If your goal is gaining muscle mass or maximizing endurance training or sports performance, you might approach it differently than if you were on a strict fat-loss program.
On a muscle growth program, it's a great idea to take
advantage of the commercial post-workout drinks available to you, because it's hard to eat enough to eat calories to gain lean body weight.
Among a list of other benefits like increased protein synthesis, decreased exercise-induced cortisol, glycogen replenishment, and improved recovery, post workout drinks provide a convenient and easy way to get more calories and that indeed may help muscle growth.
On endurance programs, recovering from workouts and keeping glycogen stores topped off are important objectives, so again a post workout drink with plenty of carbs is beneficial.
Caution is suggested when you're shifting gears from
muscle gain into fat loss.
A principle to live by is: "don't compromise your primary
objective."
If your primary objective is fat loss, then taking in a large
amount of pure sugar post-workout is not a good strategy to maximize your fat loss. It might assist muscle growth enhance recovery, or help restore your glycogen, but it won't enhance your fat loss.
Keep in mind, however, that you're very unlikely to store calories consumed after intense training as body fat, because your muscles are "hungry" and like sponges for soaking up carbs and protein after the workout, so you don't need to worry about that.
You will almost always get leaner faster with whole food (especially people with an endomorph body type who are carb sensitive). This is probably due to the thermogenic nature of whole food and the obvious fact that refined sugar is simply not fat loss food.
Because post workout nutrition is so important and because commercial post workout drinks can be so beneficial in so many ways, one way to tackle this fat loss issue if you're already using a drink, is to leave your post workout drink in during the early stages of your fat loss program. Then, if your fat loss slows down or you plateau, the drink
is the first thing to get cut as you make your fat loss diet stricter.
As always, adjust your approach NOT by the information you read in the magazines or by the conventional wisdom you hear in the gym, but by the actual results you are getting in the real world. Also remember that you must adjust your approach according to your goals and slant everything towards achieving your primary objective with maximum efficiency.
For more info, download Post Workout Nutrition, a free ebook.
Calorie Count is a useful tool for calorie intake calculation and diet planning. Calories do count and it's also important how efficiently your body burns them. Calorie Count also contains a diet planner with professional advice on food combining, detox, suggested daily calorie intake for men and women, calorie intake from beverages consumed, as well as some useful guidelines for speeding up the metabolism and making the most of it. People make the mistake of thinking they have to make drastic changes to lose weight and get in shape, but the secret is to make small changes and incorporate them into their lives permanently.
