That's Fit

When it comes to resistance training and diet, your pre and post-workout meals are among two of your most important of the day.

With respect to what you eat before hitting the weight room, your goal should be consume a fair amount of protein and a slow-digesting carb source approximately one to two hours before heading to the gym. The purpose of this meal is to not only amp up your glycogen stores in your muscles and liver, but to provide you with the energy you'll need to get the best workout possible.

As for your post-workout meal, there exists a definitive window of time to replenish your body's protein and carbohydrate levels, in addition to initiating the repair and rebuilding process of stressed muscle tissue. The clock basically starts once you've completed your very last rep, after which time you have around 45 minutes to take advantage of this window of muscle-building opportunity. However, unlike your pre-workout meal, you want to consume high-glycemic/fast-digesting carb sources, such as fruit juice, white bread, white rice, and honey. You also want to consume a bit more protein than you did in the pre-workout meal. What you do want to avoid eating at this time is a fat of any kind. Even if the fat source is healthy (such as olive or flax seed oil, nuts, avocados, etc.), it will slow down the digestion of your protein and carbs, which will work against your efforts to offer your body rapid recovery.

After your post-workout meal, something as simple as a whey protein shake and a slice of white bread topped with a tablespoon of jelly (or, an even easier option is to simply down a tall glass of low-fat chocolate milk, which offers the protein and sugary carbs you need at this crucial time), be sure to get back to your normal diet (which should be low-GI carbs, healthy fats, and lean protein sources) in about two hours or so to get your body and diet back on track.