If you want to achieve a body that’s fit and healthy, you have to understand that diet and exercise go hand in hand. You have to exercise regularly while also making sure that you don’t let yourself go and ensure that you eat healthy as well.
But what usually happens is that either most people exercise regularly but let themselves go on their diet by eating unhealthy food or eating more than what they need or just not exercising at all but still eating healthy food like including a hefty amount of fruits and vegetables in their diet while shying away from fatty foods. To ensure that your health and fitness is kept at its optimum level, you have to make sure that you have to keep a degree of balance and agreement of exercise and diet.
It is often that after an exercise or after a workout session, you tend to be hungry. While most people just end up opening their refrigerators and getting anything their eyes might see fancy, there are actually foods and drinks that are suited for you, especially after exercising.
These foods and beverages not only quench your thirst or satiate your hunger but they also promote the replenishment of your body’s energy, promote the growth and development of your muscles and even help you to lose that excess weight that you have.
What are the foods and drinks that are best eaten together when you exercise? Here are just the perfect food items that can help you keep your body fit and healthy after an exercise or workout session.
Good Old Water
First of on the list is probably the most important thing that you need to take – water. This is because when you exercise, you lose fluids as well. Put the fact that when you exercise in a more intense manner, like in humid weather and putting more effort on your cardio and strength exercises, you need to stay hydrated or your body won’t have the oxygen that it needs to keep functioning.
Keeping yourself hydrated is also a good way to gain mileage on your exercise regimen as the fluids will allow you to keep going longer. Instead of immediately grabbing a sport drink if you’re exercising at the gym where it’s temperature-controlled and quite comfortable, plain water is the perfect hydrating solution.
Salmon and Other Fishes
Yes, it’s important to eat protein, especially right after a workout. But people are usually scared of consuming too much because protein commonly comes from meat sources that are often also rich with fat.
If you’re looking for a healthier approach, salmon is the way to go. This is because the iron that you get from salmon provides you with a great amount of energy while its protein content is of the highest quality even with its small size. It allows your body to repair itself and grow after accomplishing your exercise regimen.
Furthermore, salmon is also an excellent source of Vitamin D which you don’t often get in other food sources. A low level of Vitamin D will often lead to weaker muscle strength which just won’t do when you’re exercising.
Uncanny Juices
It’s already a given that you lose fluids when you exercise. But it’s not just water that you lose. You also end up excreting the valuable electrolytes in your body. Through sweating, electrolytes like sodium and potassium are excreted. That’s where the saying of healthcare practitioners come from, “Where sodium goes, water follows.”
While it sounds easy to replace them with just a fix of a sports drink, go for the natural option with the choice of tomato juice. It’s not only filled with electrolytes but it’s also a hydrating beverage which will help you keep hydrated if you’re exercising. Measuring the amount of electrolytes that tomato juice and sports drinks provides, tomato juice wins hands down when it comes to electrolyte content.
Getting Carbohydrates and Energy
If you want your muscles to grow, carbohydrates are the best way to go. They are the primary source of energy of the body by providing glucose which is used by the muscles to keep on moving.
There are two kinds of carbohydrates – simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. While complex carbs take time to be processed and absorbed by the body, simple carbs are easily consumed and utilized by the body, providing you with a boost of energy.
But what complex carbohydrates bring is a prolonged effect of the sugar in the blood keeping you all fueled up. That’s why oatmeal is one of the best choices when it comes to food that’s best in exercise. It’s a form of complex carbohydrates that keeps the blood sugar to its optimum level, ensuring that you have enough energy to last throughout your exercise session.
Get a Jolt of Energy
If you need a quick boost of energy before starting your exercise, drinking a cup of coffee or chocolate can provide you with great help. This is because both coffee and chocolate contain caffeine. You get a quick boost of energy that can help in making your exercise last longer and give you a better endurance. It’s like getting a jolt of energy once you down a cup of coffee or chocolate. Furthermore, chocolate also provides an additional feature by giving you a boost in energy through its sugar content.
Keeping Potassium Available
One of the most important electrolytes in the body is potassium. It is often in tandem with sodium when it comes to usefulness. Potassium contributes to how to body maintains adequate muscle strength. In fact, potassium is so important that it maintains the contractility strength of the cardiac muscles ensuring that your heart is strong enough to keep beating. That is why when you work out, it is important to have a good source of potassium.
One of the best sources is raisins. It’s not just a competitive source for an energy bar, it brings you a lot more benefits that you can imagine like delivering a boost of energy, helping in keeping you hydrated throughout your exercise and preventing muscle cramps which often cut the duration of the workout for most people.
Boost Your Testosterone
By boosting your testosterone levels, you can have more stamina and endurance, or strength and size. There are several different ways that you can naturally boost your testosterone, but one thing that is important is to make sure that you use products that are completely natural.
These supplements contain a number of natural ingredients that can all help to increase testosterone production including fenugreek herb, oyster extract, vitamin D, vitamin B6, magnesium, ginseng, amino acids, and other ingredients.