Exactly What You Should Eat Before & After Your Home Workout

April 29, 2020 by Rory Carter

Step one: choose the perfect at-home workout app for your goals. Step two: make sure you're fuelling your body with the right nutrients to boost your energy levels and leave you feeling empowered to tackle the day. The food you eat and the exercise you do should be treated as a holistic approach instead of two separate facets of your life. That way they can complement each other and help you to perform at your best and recover more quickly after a yoga session or HIIT circuit.

Before you begin to switch up your pre-workout meals, it's important to be aware of your own body and any foods that could cause my stomach upset and reduce the effectiveness of your training altogether. Every person is different in terms of what helps them reach their workout goals, but there is a couple of things to consider when planning out the perfect meal to energise or wind down. Knowing what to eat and when can be a daunting thought, so we've done some research into exactly what you need to eat before and after a workout.

Before you workout

As a rule of thumb, any larger meals should be eaten two or three hours before you do any exercise. If you've ever decided to pull out the exercise mat and do a set of squats after a big pasta lunch you'll know that it can feel almost impossible to make it through without feeling unwell. Closer to your workout, a smaller snack is what will keep you feeling satisfied but not overly full, and both meals should contain both protein (for building and repairing muscle) and carbs (fuel for your body). Depending on your particular fitness goals, these meals can be larger or smaller and include an adjusted level of these important nutrients.

Pre-workout meal ideas:

Handful of nuts and raisins
Banana smoothie
Greek yoghurt
Rice cakes and almond butter

After you workout

Any exercise you're doing will cause muscle cell breakdown. We need to choose foods that will help to repair and rebuild our muscles and also our energy levels. Ideally within one hour after exercising you should be consuming a protein-rich meal that also incudes carbs to help your body recover from any movement you've been doing.