Snacking After a Workout May Mitigate Benefits

I disagree with this article ! While I agree that sports drinks are largely unnecessary for the average exerciser, food post workout is important, especially if one's exercise habit is continuous. The body needs to refuel after exercise - not necessarily immediately afterwards but within 30 minutes to 2 hours it is beneficial to eat a nutritious snack to replenish mucle glycogen stores. If the workout included weight training/muscle building work, some protein is important as well (not a lot).

Maybe my issue is that the title & the article seem at odds with each other. The title says snacking, but the article ends up talking about sports drinks - really two different issues !

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I read the article all the way through. It's very misleading. The article actually says that it doesn't matter when people eat high-carb foods compared to when people exercise. Carbs reduce insulin effectiveness no matter when you eat them:

"That really didn't make a whole lot of difference, which surprised us," Braun stated. "What did seem to matter was whether you ate back calories, and whether those calories were mostly carbohydrates."

Here are more details about the third study:

"Brooke Stephens-Hasson conducted a study, also published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, in which she changed the timing of when the meal was given while keeping the total calories and carbohydrate content of each meal constant. She compared identical meals given before, immediately after, or three hours after 75 minutes of moderately intense bicycling. Once again, the effectiveness of insulin to clear blood sugar was better after any of the exercise conditions compared to a no-exercise condition. Although there were a few subtle differences, the results were similar among all three exercise/meal combinations, suggesting that timing of the meals was not an important consideration."

Basically, what's important that people exercise and what people eat. Differences in timing between meals and exercise don't matter.

The experiments involved merely "ten young, overweight" people each. The results might not apply to people who aren't overweight or people who aren't young, and ten people seems like a rather insignificant sample size to me.

Different people have different body types. Some bodies do better eating before workouts, other bodies need to eat after, and still other bodies may require other habits. I think the fact that we have so much fitness advice out there is that different things work better for different people. Furthermore, even if we're talking about the same person, what worked before may stop working as they age or have other things going on in their lives.

Finally, "mitigate" means to make a bad thing less bad. "Mitigate benefits" is a nonsensical combination of words.

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Hmmm...I think snacking is necessary IF you have a high physical activity level. I'm a pretty active person and, although I'm hitting 40. I DO need to snack. In my other post I said that it is important to replenish if you are exercising consecutive days - in which case refueling is important. I know, for myself, I won't be up to getting some exercise (walking, running, weight training, etc.) if I don't refuel properly.

Of course, snacks should be defined. To me, a snack is a complex carb with some protein...probably in the area of 200-300 calories. Hmmm, such as an apple cut up with peanut butter spread on it. I am certainly not talking about a bag of Cheetos !

Ok, so maybe the average Jane/Joe doesn't need to worry so much BUT it is a lifestyle - best results with complex carbs and a mix of fat/protein/carbs every snack/meal.

FWIW, I would DIE without snacks. I'm a lean person with 19% body fat and I "graze". I learned this from my kids. High volume food (that's those complex carbs) and eating every 3-4 hours....and lots of water. I guess it goes without saying that my main meals aren't 5 course deals !!!!

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My issue with this was they used people walking on a treadmill for an hour. How fast, and what incline?
Walking is better than nothing, but not exactly a 'workout'.
Try high intensity interval training for 20 minutes, followed by a circuit of weights, and THEN see what they say about needing to replenish the muscles and glycogen stores. In the form of natural wholesome food of course, not high fructose corn syrup.

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