Everyone starts cardio fitness routines for their own reasons, but many of us are trying to lose weight, burn fat, manage our stress, or build firmer bodies. With all of these various goals in mind, there are differing diet strategies, but some basic rules apply across the board. If you’re doing more than 30 minutes of cardio in a day, you’ll need to consume more calories (and drink more water!) than on more sedentary days. Starving yourself in combination with cardio exercise has dire consequences and any diet that recommends strictly reducing calorie intake while significantly upping the intensity of cardio is likely dangerous. But you do want your diet to work hand in hand with your cardio, and that’s why it’s important to consider when and what you eat.
Healthy Food Choices: Look for Fiber
It is true that you can exercise while eating a poorly balanced diet and gain weight. This painful reality has led many people to blame their cardio workouts for weight gain. That’s why a holistic health approach needs to be taken in order to balance your diet in line with your balanced cardio fitness routine.
Make fiber a priority, try for 40 grams per day, and get it from fruits and vegetables. High fiber diets do wonders for your metabolism and keep your digestion system clean and in order for processing the other vitamins and nutrients critical for your weight loss, fat burning, and overall health. Fiber can also be found in many breakfast cereals, but make sure you aren’t indulging in the one’s overloaded with sugar. Many beans, peas, and grains are also high in fiber.
The foods listed above are actually enough to get you started. We all know what we should avoid, that’s why we call it junk food. So get rid of the junk and replace those meals and snacks with high fiber foods and watch how much quicker you reach your fitness goals.
Before the Workout
Contrary to a common belief, a pre-workout drink or meal is not the ideal way to fuel your muscles for optimal performance. Energy drinks and sports bars are way too high in glucose, which your body can convert into energy, but when it remains unconverted it turns into fat.
More regularly timed meals, as opposed to binging after work and on your way to the gym, allow your body to generate glycogen, a substance of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen taken from carbohydrates. Glycogen takes time to move to the muscles but provides a great source of energy that can be critical in any fitness regime. To find out more about how your glycogen is affected by exercise visit this website: https://newsupdatesnow.com/
After the Workout
Glycogen is best replenished immediately following a workout. During this time, your muscles are typically drained of glycogen and your metabolism is seeking to replenish lost energy. The metaphor most useful for this post-workout meal is that you should fill up your car with gas right away upon depletion even if you’re not going to drive somewhere again until the next day. If timed properly, your body can more effectively manage its refueling and you’ll have far more energy for your next workout. And actually having enough energy to feel good during your cardio workouts is a critical contributor to both the sustainability and effectiveness of fitness plans with various goals, whether they be weight loss, fat burning, endurance training, or body building.
The window following your workout should be filled immediately with carbohydrate consumption. Some simple carbohydrates, like sugars, but there are fitness beverages that offer sugars with a high glycemic rating that are likely the best option, are fine if it is really immediately following an intense workout. But complex carbohydrates are the best for your post-workout meal. Try rice, potatoes, bread, or pasta. And it is recommended to load up your next meal, or second meal after the workout, with protein. Try these protein-rich foods: tofu, chickpeas, kidney beans, unrefined grains, or nuts and nut butters.
Here you’ll find delayed gratification in finding yourself energized for your next effective cardio workout, let it be jogging, spinning or training on the treadmill. It’s all about the timing! And the fiber.