8 Things to NEVER Do After a Workout

Here are 8 common post-workout mista0kes that you should definitely avoid if you want to build more muscle and burn off that stubborn fat. Find out what you should be eating and doing after a workout to boost recovery. Avoid making these common weight loss and muscle building mistakes and you’ll get to your goals faster.

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After a workout, your muscles are left broken down due to microscopic tears, and your glycogen stores are depleted leaving you feeling a little more tired and much hungrier than you felt before you started your workout. Now, this is all perfectly normal as long as you do the right things after your workout to recover and take your body one step closer to your goal of burning fat or building muscle. However, there are some very common mistakes that so many people are making at the end of their workouts, and these mistakes can literally kill your progress and actually make you move further away from your goal even if you’re working out hard and consistently. 

And the first mistake that I want to start with is believing that you can’t eat any sources of fat like eggs, avocado, or steak after your workout. Now this belief has been around for a long time, and I used to believe it too. It’s based on the idea that fats can slow the digestion of your meal making it take longer for the nutrients to get into your muscle cells and for your body to switch from breaking down muscle to repairing and building muscle. On top of that, while carbohydrates and protein play a big part in the recovery and muscle growth process, fats don’t really help spike your insulin levels the way that carbs do, they can’t be used to repair your muscles the way that protein can, and in general, they don’t really have any direct anabolic properties. But with all that said there’s really no evidence that it’s necessarily bad to have fats after your workout. Even though it might slow down the absorption of your post-workout meal, it shouldn’t really hurt you or reduce the benefits that you experience. This is because even though you don’t want to wait too long you don’t necessarily need to get all those nutrients into your muscles as fast as possible after your workout. So if your meal takes a little longer to absorb because you added fat to it, it’s really not going to make that big of a difference especially if you already had breakfast or you simply ate before your workout. Even though the research that we have is limited and is based only on cyclists rather than weight lifters, that research does still support the idea that even if you consume a very high-fat meal after working out where 45 percent of the calories are coming from fat, the recovery process should not be negatively affected. (1) So the bottom line is that it’s okay to have sources of fat like whole milk instead of skim milk with your protein shake after a workout. (2) The one exception to this is if you haven’t eaten anything in over 4 hours, then you may want to limit your fat intake after your workout to help get nutrients to your muscles faster. 

The next mistake is going overboard with rewarding yourself for your workout with food. I’ve seen people with my own eyes, hit the gym and then right afterward stop at a 7-11 and pick up some candy like gummy bears for example. Now even though one of the best times to have sugar does happen to be immediately after your workout since it’ll help spike your insulin levels, there’s a big difference between having a banana versus sour patch kids. First of all, working out, in general, is going to make you feel hungrier when you’re done, and to put it simply if you’re trying to satisfy that hunger with food that you find at your closest convenience store you’re probably going to wind up overeating especially if that food is candy. And that’s okay if you’re doing a dirty bulk, but if you’re trying to stay lean while building muscle, or you’re if you’re trying to burn fat, the food you eat will play a bigger impact than the workout you perform. For example, if you have 2 slices of pizza, you’ll have to run for about 45 minutes to burn those calories off. So it’s very important that you don’t lose your will power and give in to the increased hunger that you’ll feel after a workout by going for just any random food that comes your way. If you find that you have a problem with managing hunger after your workout makes sure that you have an already prepped post-workout meal waiting for you in the fridge, or even a quick…

References:

1. 45% fat intake for cyclists after their workout didn’t seem to have any negative effects on muscle glycogen recovery.
 
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14978010/many people have a protein shake with whole milk.   
2. “Whole milk may have increased utilization of available amino acids for protein synthesis. (when compared to skim milk)”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16679981/