7 post gym eating mistakes people make

High five—you’re making it to the gym on the regular and building muscle. Thing is, if you’re not refueling with the right foods, you might be undoing all the benefits of your sweat sessions. There’s lots of conflicting info about post-workout nutrition out there, but the rules really aren’t that complicated.

It will be best to read on for the seven most common food fails, plus the smart nutrition tweaks that’ll pump your energy and motivation and make reaching your fitness goals so much easier.

You wait too long to eat

Maybe you’re trying to shed kilos. Or you fear that by eating too soon after a workout, you’ll lose resolve and face plant into a bag of chips. “But right now, your energy-depleted body is gasping for kilojoules,” says sports nutritionist Nancy Clark. She suggests getting food into your system ASAP, say within 30 minutes of finishing up, to keep blood-sugar levels steady and ward off crazy fatigue and hunger. If it’s between meals, go for a snack that mixes protein with complex carbs,” says Clark. Low-fat yogurt with nuts or fruit is a good pick.

You inhale a pizza post-workout

After a hard-charging run, you figure you’ve burned hundreds of kJs—and that calls for a pizza feast to restock your reserves, right? Um, no. Research shows that most of us wildly overestimate how much we burn working out. Even though you feel like you’ve incinerated a thousand kJs, it was likely just a fraction of that…and you’ll gain it all back and more if you fall into this trap, says Clark.

You rehydrate with a sports drink

If you’re an elite athlete doing super-intense training, you might benefit from rehydrating with a sports drink, which delivers energy in the form of sugar and replenishes levels of electrolytes. But otherwise, regular H2O is the best way to hydrate, says Clark. “Use your thirst as a guide; drink as much water as you need to feel hydrated again, and don’t try to force yourself to drink a set amount,” she says. Or rely on the pee test: If you pee every few hours and it’s a light color, your fluid level is fine, she says.

You go overboard on the protein

“Protein is a great recovery nutrient that helps rebuild muscle torn during a workout, but your body can only use so much,” says Clark. Instead, balance your protein intake with complex carbs. Whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables provide the steady energy your system craves while helping protein to do its job repairing muscle. And don’t fear fat; the good kind keeps you satiated. Super options: chicken and brown rice; cereal, milk, and fruit; and pasta and turkey meatballs, recommends Clark.

Read also: The hidden benefits of exercise

You reach for high-caffeine snacks

It’s normal to be fatigued after strenuous exercise—but relying on a post-gym coffee for a pick me up can backfire. You’ll get an energy lift at first, but it’ll wear off quickly, leaving your blood sugar tanking and you reaching for more, says Clark. You power up by packing something nutritious in your gym bag rather than reaching for caffeine. This way, your energy fix won’t quickly turn into an energy suck.

You head straight for the smoothie bar

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with refueling and rehydrating with a post-exercise smoothie. But often these workout drinks don’t contain the right balance of carbohydrates and protein, says Clark, or they’re super-high in kilojoules and leave you overcompensating for what you just burned off. Like your post-gym meals and snacks, make sure the ingredients include equal parts protein and good carbohydrates. Score protein from Greek yogurt, low-fat milk, soy milk, or even peanut butter, and get your carbohydrates via fruit and veggies.

You hit happy hour after the gym

Beating your best training time calls for a celebration. Just don’t do it with alcohol. First, booze is dehydrating, so it’s not the ideal beverage to pound after you’ve sweat buckets an hour or two ago, says Clark. But also, alcohol isn’t exactly an ideal recovery drink. A 2014 study found that alcohol prevents muscles from synthesizing protein after a workout—keeping them from repairing torn muscle fibers.

Credit: Australian Women’s Health

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