Have you heard the advice extended to some of the top-notch athletes to gulp an energy drink or a bar as soon as they are done with their workout? Are you also trying to follow the same advice despite you not being an athlete or a sportsperson? If yes, then please stop immediately. The researchers have found that the practice of eating immediately following a workout may not prove to be as smart for you as it does for the athletes.
Barry S. Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts and the co-author of the study said, "If people are going to go out and exercise to benefit their health, they should not be eating back the calories immediately upon finishing, or within a couple of hours of finishing,". Barry S. Braun added "In order to maintain the benefits, you need to be in this calorie deficit."
"Athletes are always advised to do exactly the opposite," he continued. "That’s great for athletes, but for the other 99.9 percent of the world, that’s probably the wrong thing."
Braun and other researchers authored the papers detailing the findings of their studies that were later published in leading Journals. The studies were carried on ten young volunteers consisting of overweight men and women.
In first study the volunteers walked treadmill for about 30 minutes everyday and burned 500 Kcal every time. 50 percent of the group was advised to have a high carb calorie drink soon after the treadmill walk while the other 50 was not supposed to take anything.
The study noticed that for the people who did not take anything after the exercise, effectiveness for the insulin increased by up to 40%. However the same was missing in the group that took carb-high calorie drink after the workout.
The researchers in the second study tried comparing the impact of different kinds of calories on the insulin efficiency. The volunteers now did cycling for about 75 minutes. After the exercise this time 50 percent were given a diet that was full of carbs while the remaining people were given a low carb diet with the same calories though. Insulin was effective in people who were given low carb diets.
"It seems as though giving people back carbohydrates blunts or diminishes this exercise benefit," Braun said.
In the third study the timing of the post workout snack was changed. After cycling for 75 minutes the volunteers were given the similar meal but at different timings. Some were given the food before the workout, some immediately after the workout, and some were given the meal after a considerable gap of three hours. The study revealed that whatever the time of the meal was, it did not affect the insulin effectiveness in the volunteers.
"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."
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