I get this question very often and today I’m going to answer this in more detail to support you throughout your health and fitness routine.
If you’ve been exercising consistently, changing up your workouts week over week, and focusing on progressive overload without seeing the results you’re looking for, it may be time to take a look at your nutrition. This encompasses not only what you’re eating on a daily basis, but also when and how much you’re fueling yourself throughout your day. Now, there is a lot to this topic that is a bit beyond the scope of what we will cover today, but I do cover more about building a balanced nutritional routine in my Lifestyle Nutrition Guide, which is available now, here!
So let’s talk specifically about protein intake timing in regards to workouts. If you’re thinking, “woah woah woah, I still need to figure out how much protein to be getting in on daily basis,” then refer to this blog post: Your Must Knows About Macros to Reach Your Goals.
Since we’re mainly talking about quantity of protein to consume before and after your workouts, I want to make sure to call our that your other macronutrients (fats and carbs) also pay a role before and after your workouts. We will get into this later on why these are needed too, in addition to protein.
Background on Protein
If you’ve already read this blog post on understanding macros, you know that protein is the only macronutrient that is not stored in the body, meaning it is entirely used up for bodily functions. Protein is also the macronutrient that supports satiety, the feeling of fullness, supports the development of lean muscle and increases in bone density. While protein alone does is not responsible for energy production, when combined with carbs and fats, the body will feel both energized and full. So let’s take that going into these next points.
Items to Consider with Protein Timing
When thinking about when and how much protein to consume before and after a workout, there are 3 main factors to consider:
Workout intensity and duration
Time of day you workout
Hunger levels
Let’s get into each of these to better support you in making your decision on how much protein to consume before or after your workout.
Workout Intensity and Duration
Your workout intensity, meaning the type of workout you’re doing and your rating of perceived exertion or level of difficulty you’re experiencing during the workout, are going to play a role in if and how much protein is needed before a workout. For exercise duration, this refers to the total time spent during your workout.
Before your workout
For example, if you are going into a moderate intensity, 45 min strength training session, you may want to consider fueling your body 30-60 mins prior to your workout, so you don’t feel hungry (lacking protein) and lethargic (lacking carbohydrates) during your workout. So fueling with adequate carbs and protein for energy and satiation before a workout may be a good decision, also based on our other 2 factors of time of day your workout is taking place and your hunger levels, which we will get into next.
If you’re going for a low intensity walk where you are remaining in Zone 1 (light to moderate intensity) for 30-45 mins, you may not need much to fuel you before the walk as you won’t be utilizing as much energy during this workout.
After your workout
When it comes to after your workout, specifically if your workout was of moderate or greater intensity and longer than 25 minuets, you may want to consider fueling your body with lean protein to support the building of lean muscle and feeling satiated (replenished) after your workout. It is recommended to consume at least 15-25g of protein (or more based on your protein targets) of protein within in 60 minutes of completing your moderate to high intensity exercise to support muscle protein synthesis (the development of lean muscle, specifically after strength training).
As a wrap up, I would further qualify the amount of protein or food in general that is needed before your workout with the following two factors in mind as well. For protein intake after your moderate to high intensity workout, I recommend consuming a high protein meal also comprised of nutrient rich carbs and healthy fats to replenish your body after rigorous exercise.
Time of Day You Workout
Getting into the time of day you are exercising, this can play a significant role as you could be exercising just before a meal time or sometimes in more odd hours of the day when you may be in-between meal times. Let’s discuss each of these scenarios.
Before your workout
For example, you’re having lunch and you start to plan out the rest of your afternoon. You have a 3pm gap where you can get in your moderate intensity strength training session that will be about 45 minutes long.
You’re already having lunch now at 12pm and with your workout and by the time you wrap up, your next meal may not be until 5pm or even later at that point. In this case, you may want to consider having a light snack focusing on carbohydrates and protein to sustain you through your workout. Having a balanced snack including all macros with an emphasis on carbs and protein would be best.
This becomes important when thinking about your workout performance. Without adequate energy and satiation, you may not be able to perform as well as you could in your workout if you were adequately fueled prior to starting. It’s recommended when choosing to eat before a workout, to do so at least 30-60 mins prior to starting so you have time to digest and not feel your meal or snack coming up during your workout!
After your workout
Now let’s consider protein intake after your workout, using the same scenario we used above. Let’s say you had your lunch at 12pm and a small carbohydrate focused snack (examples: apple and cheese/peanut butter, turkey and cheese with crackers, or fruit and nuts) around 2pm before your 3pm workout. You finish up your workout by 4pm and you know you’re going to be having dinner in 2-2.5 hours.
Instead of waiting to replenish your body with nutrients until dinner, you may want to consider a high protein snack to keep you satiated support the rebuilding of muscle that is torn down during exercise, specifically strength training.
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There are a few reasons for this, but the primary being that by replenishing your body sooner, it can be in a state of muscle protein synthesis sooner rather than waiting nearly 3 hours for your next meal. This will also increase the protein intake throughout your day, boosting your metabolism and allowing you to never feel starving going into a meal.
Hunger Levels
The one thing I hear most when it comes to hunger levels and protein intake is “how can I possibly eat more protein than I am already eating if I am not hungry?” The human body is adaptive, so it is going to react based on how you feed it or the demands you place on it (like with exercise). The more active you are, the variety of training you do will impact not only your physical adaptations (like muscle), but also your metabolic response, such as your metabolism, hunger levels, state of muscle protein synthesis and efficiency of your cardiovascular system.
Before your workout
Let’s use the scenario of morning exercisers. Say you notoriously workout in the mornings almost immediately after you wake up. For example, you wake up around 6:45am and plan to start your workout at 7:30am and your workout is going to follow a strength training format and be moderate to high intensity.
This would be entering your workout on a fasted state, meaning you haven’t had any food or drink (other than water) for several hours, usually 7 or 8+ hours. Many people find this effective for them because they aren’t hungry first thing in the morning and don’t have enough time to wake up, eat and then get a workout in. In this instance, you would want to focus on having a high protein breakfast after your workout for all the reasons we’ve discussed so far. You likely will also be more hungry after your workout if you exercised on a fasted state.
Going back to the midday workout example we used earlier, if you were having lunch at 12pm and planning to workout at 3pm, your hunger levels could impact this as well as the exercise intensity and duration. You may find that when eating at 12pm, you usually get hungry around 3pm for a snack, even on non-workout days. This would be a reason to have a small snack as discussed earlier around 2pm to ensure you can perform well and not be hungry during your 3pm workout
After your workout
Using this same example, if you wrap up your workout around 4pm and know you’re not going to eat until 6:30 or 7pm, you may notice yourself hungry at this awkward time before dinner. Not wanting to spoil your dinner, you may usually opt to have nothing. Though for the reasons discussed earlier, this may not be the best based on your goals, and especially if you’re focusing on building lean muscle (and burning fat).
You also don’t want to show up starving to a meal as it may only lead to you overeating in that one sitting, vs. spreading out your intake throughout your day to support your metabolism staying elevated and keeping your body in a constant state of muscle protein synthesis (devloping lean muscle mass).
Next Steps
As you can see, these factors are very closely intertwined and very much dependent on your lifestyle and personal schedule. Use these examples to relate to your own life and make the best decisions to support your goals on when to prioritize protein and meals as a whole throughout your day.
Take the next step to get granular on specific protein content throughout your day, snag my Lifestyle Nutrition Guide and head to the Protein section. You can pick up right where we’ve left off here with tailoring a protein intake & using the recipes and snacks in my guide to plan out your week with exercise & nutrition!
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