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Friday, April 20, 2012

Post Training Meal




When you eat is as important as what you eat, really. Post training the muscles are primed for nutrients, and you want carbs that are fast digesting to go straight to the waiting cells in those muscles.


Studies have shown that a combination of protein and carbs are best when you want to build muscle and repair tissue. You should have this within 45 minutes of training, the sooner the better. The "window" of opportunity for your muscles gets smaller and smaller the longer you wait.


I love my post training drink!


Now don't fall into what a lot of people do and that is have a fairly high calorie post training drink, then immediately have a big meal, the drink is your meal! And if you make it correctly, you will be satisfied.


My simple carbs are a banana, a small banana, about 6 inches long. I make sure they are the ripeness I like then I peel them and wrap them individually in plastic and freeze them. My freezer is full of white dead soldiers.




Then I make my drink by combining in a blender 1 1/2 cups water, a handful of ice, one frozen banana (I break it in a few pieces with my hands first) and I blend it well until all frozen bits are blended.

The protein is a blend I create myself, (see the small white container in the top photo). I add 1 1/2 scoops chocolate or chocolate peanut butter whey protein, 5 grams glutamine, 2 1/2 grams creatine (I took the other 2 1/2 grams pre training) and BCAA's. I make a bunch of these and keep them in my supplement box in the garage.


Now the rest may vary depending on when I am training. If I lifted in the morning on my own, I make the smoothie as described above then add the powdered mixture at home and drink it in the car as I drive to work.


If I am training with Roy after work, I make the smoothie as described above but I do not add the powdered mixture. I store the smoothie in my freezer in my office, turning it a couple times during the day, and after I finish training with Roy, I add the powdered mixture and shake it all up, and drink it in the car going home!


 So what's the dark stuff? My secret! I love coffee, I love mocha's but cannot drink them (milk) so in the mornings I will add some cold strong coffee or a heaping tablespoon of instant coffee to my smoothie and it becomes a chocolate-banana-coffee protein smoothie.


I love it!

4 comments:

  1. great idea PEELING the bananas before freezing. My hands hurt the way I do it - which is take a whole unpeeled banana out of the freezer and then cut the peels off. haha...

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  2. I love coffee in my smoothies!

    I peel the bananas, cut them in half, put them on a sheet pan, pop them in the freezer. Then when they are frozen I toss them in a zip lock back for future smoothie action. Got a nice big bag in there right now just waiting to be made into a yummy smoothie.

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  3. Christine- Great idea! I would do that but my freezer is so very jammed packed. My bananas live in the small thin spaces between everything else in there!

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