Best Eating And Exercise Practices

Best Eating and Exercise Practices

Every time you exercise, your goal is to maintain good health. You also have to eat correctly so your body will have the energy it needs for exercise and maintenance. It will also be able to perform the everyday tasks of life better. Eating correctly before and after your workout is very important, it helps you get the best results from your exercise.

To prepare for a cardio workout or a resistance workout, you should always make it a point to eat a balanced mix of protein and carbohydrates. What determines the percentage of carbs and protein you consume is whether or not you are doing cardio or resistance exercise and the intensity level of your planned workout.

The ideal time for you to eat your pre workout meal is an hour before you start. If you plan to work at a low intensity level, you should keep your pre workout meal down to 200 calories or so. If you plan to exercise at a high level of intensity, your meal should be between 4,000 and 5,000 calories.

Those who are doing a cardio session will need to consume a mix of 2/3 carbs and 1/3 protein. Doing so will give you longer sustained energy from the extra carbs with enough protein to keep your muscle from breaking down while you exercise.

For resistance exercise, you'll need to eat a mix of 1/3 carbs and 2/3 protein, as this will help you get plenty of energy from the carbs to perform each set you do and the extra protein will help keep muscle breakdown to a minimum while you exercise.

Every time you exercise, whether its cardio or resistance, you deplete energy in the form of glycogen. The brain and central nervous system rely on glycogen as their main source of fuel, so if you don't replace it after you exercise; your body will begin to break down muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert them into usable fuel for the brain and the central nervous system.

Once you have finished a cardio session, you'll need to consume mainly carbohydrates, preferably those with high fiber. Rice, oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and northern fruits are excellent sources. Also, try to consume 30 - 50 grams of these types of carbs after your other exercise sessions. After your cardio workout, it is fine to eat within 5 – 10 minutes.

Once you've finished a resistance workout, you will need to consume a combination of carbs and protein. Unlike cardio workouts, resistance workouts will break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears. What this means, is that after a workout, your muscles will instantly go into repair mode. Protein is the key for muscle repair; to keep muscle from breaking down even further to create fuel instead of glycogen.

Protein will build up and repair these tears so that the muscle can increase in size and strength. The carbs will not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but will also help the protein get into muscle cells so it can synthesize into structural protein.

After your resistance exercise, you should wait up to 30 minutes before you eat, so that you won’t take blood away from your muscles too fast. The blood in your muscles will help the repair process by removing the metabolic waste products.