Confused about workouts at night

[pbo]

Not sure how to handle my bonus pre and post workout meals.

I workout at night around 7pm. I leave work at 5 and get home around 645, so I don't have time for dinner.

So a prework meal makes sense but post workout (815ish) not really much time before bed to fit 2 meals.

Combine post workout with dinner? Or eat something at the gym right when I finish, go home, wait a half hour or so and have a small dinner?

Searched the forum and saw this question come up a few times but with no real good replies .

[Susan W]

I have the same issue when I have sessions with my trainer at 11am on mon, wed and friday. I literally have a lean protein sitting in my car waiting for me. I gobble and drive and have a proper second meal at one or two and meal three around seven. Would that work? Slices of tri tip are my go to pwo protein. Or slices of leftover chicken. Tuna or sardines packed in water (fat interferes in the feeding of your muscles) work too but I seem to gravitate to leftover lean protein on training days.

[pbo]

Might work. I just wonde if I wait after my pwo meal, then dinner will be around 845-9.

I wake up around 7am, so to get a healthy 8-9 hours sleep we are talking about falling asleep around 10-11pm.

Not clear on if that's putting dinner to close to sleep. I guess I can play around.

This brings me to some cognitive dissonance ive been having with this meal.

Stress from workout, then rush to eat (bad for digestion), then rush together another meal.

Flight or fight and rest or digest are our two modes. Can't really be doing both at the same time. I would like the whole 30 to not be supporting this type of behavior, maybe I'm missing something.

[Fenderbender]

Sleep is so important! So like Susan, I just eat 3-4 oz protein and a sweet potato in my car as soon as my PM workout is over...drive home and have a smaller dinner 45 min later so I can digest properly and get to bed.....

[Tom Denham]

Ideally we would work out in the daytime because daytime exercise fits out natural rhythms best. And we would eat a serving of lean protein immediately after exercise because that is best for muscle recovery. And to cap it all off, we would eat our last meal at least two hours before bed time because we need some digestion time prior to sleeping to maximize sleep quality. Following another schedule involves compromises which include consequences. The question is, what consequences do you want to deal with.

If working out at 7 PM is the best you can do, you might work to do most of your eating at breakfast and lunch, so you don't need to eat big at supper to have eaten enough for the day. Then eat a meal-size serving of lean protein when you complete your workout at the gym, drive home and eat some veggies, and you're done.

[pbo]

Tom, no carbs post workout.

Dinner no protein ?

According to the book, days I workout I should be getting 4.5 servings of meat right ?

[kellyp]

I do the same thing that Susan and Fenderbender do. I have a small amt of lean protein and sweet potato in the car and eat as I am on my way home. If it is late or close to mealtime, I just have a smaller PWO portion.

[pbo]

Okay, but don't you guys think it's a bit ridiculous eating while your driving home? Once again, maybe I am misunderstanding, but that seems like a real bad idea.

Eating, and rapidly throwing down some protein while driving can not be good. Just my opinion I guess.

[Susan W]

Actually, I literally eat my 3 slices of lean protein in my car before I even start it most of the time. Other times I drive and simply reach over and grab a slice. I certainly wouldn't eat an entire meal that way. Whatever works best for you is what you should do. We're all just giving you the options of what we do. I think of my pwo protein as medicine in a way as opposed to a meal that I share with friends and family over relaxed conversation.

[missmary]

confession time: I don't do the post-workout meal. I just don't. I workout in the morning, and I try to have some protein/fat before hand (so hard, since I'm used to working out fasted, but I see the value in doing this). My first whole30 I tried to eat some roast beef and sweet potato immediatly afterwards, but it was just so grim sitting in front of my gym locker forcing something in when my stomach didn't want it.

I do better eating meal#1 about 1/2 hour-45 minutes after my workout (I do try to limit fat in this meal, so It's mostly protein and veg). I'm still getting stronger (maybe not as fast as I would if I was super rigorous about eating protein faster, but it works for me). I also don't notice any recovery issues, really. YMMV depending on how lean you are, how strenuous your workouts are and your goals as well. I would just test some things out and see how you do.

[pbo]

@missmary - Exactly my point.

I hope I am not giving the impression that I am judging what anybody else is doing, I just want to make sure I understand the protocol. Don't want to mess something up that should be so simple.

For me, it seems a bit crazy to be scarfing down food, eating in car, etc. I am using Whole 30 to bring myself back to a more healthy relationship with food. I tend to easily overeat, eat way to fast, and so for me, slowing down is important.

Obviously I play around with a few options, but just figured more people would have this issue.

[Tom Denham]

PBO - Carbs are optional as part of a post-workout meal. I usually eat a can of tuna packed in water as my lean protein while inside the gym. I used to eat sardines, but management asked me to stop eating them inside the building, so I switched to tuna. I would prefer chicken or roast beef, but cans of tuna transport easier and I always have them in my pantry.

You could eat an entire meal at the gym, but I assume that is too much trouble. I suggested eating your protein at the gym and veggies at home because that would be simple. You could eat more protein at home.

Between 3 regular meals and a pre- and post-workout meal, you are right that the idea would be to total 4.5 servings of protein per day of working out. I frequently eat more than one palm-size portion at a meal, so I wasn't thinking about that.

The longer I have eaten the Whole30 way, the more I notice overall food intake in a day. I find that if I miss a meal, eating normally the rest of the day leaves me in a bit of a deficit. It doesn't matter that I eat big at supper. I might still wake up in the middle of the night hungry. So if I am going to eat light late in the day, I need to eat heavy at breakfast and lunch. This experience is why I suggested you could eat heavy early in the day and not require as much at night.

[Fenderbender]

@ pbo.....

I too have struggled with an unhealthy relationship with food most of my life, so I see where you are coming from...

It's not a perfect world so we need to pick and choose and hopefully we will make the healthiest choices for us at the time, given the circumstances...

For me, living in an imperfect world, is hard. I like routine,regimentation, consistency....... And when that gets blown, I tended to say screw it all and go nuts..... W30 has taught me to be much more flexible. As long as I am eating the right types of food in the right proportions.... I have the freedom to experiment to find what works for me....no guilt or shame, just proformance feed back based.... Not just the workout, mood,sleep,energy..... So if splitting up the PM meal ( not truly ideal) a couple of times a week gives me better sleep.... The trade off is worth it.

Also, Tom is 100% on about eating earlier in the day... No way to make up for under fueling once your in it, just need to tough it out and after, recover/ fuel for the next workout.

[Kim Christensen]

I workout from 6-7. I leave at 5:20. It is a tad too early for me to eat dinner and when I drive the half an hour home it's a tad too late for a full dinner. Eating an extra PWO meal is just too much food stuffed into a dinner time period for me, I have dinner done and ready and serve a dinner sized portion. I eat about half before I go to my box and eat the other half after I am done working out. On Saturday mornings I do CF as well and have a PWO like whole30 recommended.

[martinekerr]

Interesting thread. I'm an RKCII instructor leading an evening kettlebell training session until 9pm. I've tried having a bit of sweet potato and some lean protein afterwards to have enough energy to teach my next morning class at 8:45, but am finding it impossible to stay awake for 2 hours after I eat. Lounging on the sofa last night, my stomach was gurgling something fierce, but I managed to fall asleep right there anyway, about 30 minutes after I ate. Not ideal I know and I did have trouble falling asleep in my bed afterwards due to the gurgling.

[Snicci]

I have the same issue. I workout at 6:30, usually getting home between 7:30 and 8:00pm. I'm up around 5:30, to I try to be in bed by 9:30-10:00. My solution is to eat a regular meal (dinner) around 8:00-8:30 when I get home. I also eat a "snack" around 3:30pm. So my day looks like this:

5:30am wake up

7:00am coffee & meal 1

11:30am meal 2

3:30pm snack (or pre-workout meal)

6:30pm workout

8:30pm dinner

9:30pm Bed

So, I don't get the full 2 hours between dinner and bed (and my post-workout meal IS my dinner), but it's what my schedule allows at this time.

[GLC1968]

I used to do something similar to Snicci in that I'd make my PWO meal my regular meal as well. This worked if my meal was pre-made so that I could eat immediately after I got home and still be within 20 - 40 minutes of my workout. If I had to cook for 30 minutes after getting home, I'd have missed that great window to resupply my body. It was never a very big meal (I rarely have a big appetite immediately after eating) but I found that if I missed that window, I'd be insatiable for the rest of the day.

Due to injury, I'm not working out so hard anymore so I don't feel the need for a PWO meal in most cases.

Listen to your body and make adjustments as necessary. The key, of course, is to really and truly listen...don't just assume.

[Beets]

This thread is really helpful. My only option for going to yoga is late in the evening after my husband gets home from work. 7:55-9:15. I go to bed at 10:30. (I realize this isn't ideal but my only other option would be to pay a babysitter $30-$40 every time I go to class, i.e., there is no other option.)

I guess I need to eat before my class? And then a snack when I get home--or in the car, though not while actively driving.

If I wait till after class it's too late for me to eat, and I'm often not hungry enough to eat an entire meal. That happened last night and this morning I woke up ravenous. The thing is, I can't stand to eat less than an hour before class so that means I need to eat "dinner" hours before I usually eat it.

Hmmm. I guess this is all about making changes. For some reason moving my normal meal time is even harder than eliminating certain foods!

[Noelle]

LOTS of helpful information in this thread! I work out at home, after dinner, and don't always eat a post-workout meal. I do mostly stretching and bodyweight exercises, and unless I work really hard (or long), I feel like the benefit to going to bed without having just eaten outweighs the benefit I might get from a post-workout meal. I'm trying to be flexible about the whole thing, as my workout/sleep routine still isn't ideal right now.

[mskapaldo]

Hello! I am a newbie and I am an avid runner! I am starting Paleo this Wednesday and I am preparing to buy all compliant foods, Yesterday I finished cleaning out a section of my pantry and a section in my fridge of non compliant foods and labeling the drawers with
"PALEO FOODS". I am pretty excited about doing this challenge for the next 30 days but I am also nervous at the same time. I am a little nervous because I am a runner and I usually eat a ton of carbs for energy and with the Paleo diet, I am worried about my carb intake. I realized that I can get carbs from sweet potato and some green veggies but it's not the same as pasta or bread. 

 

Is there a runner in this forum?  If so, what have you done to keep yourself energized and what are your suggestions? What has worked for you and what has not? Your suggestions are always appreciated!

Looking forward to interacting with you all! 

[Physibeth]

Hello! I am a newbie and I am an avid runner! I am starting Paleo this Wednesday and I am preparing to buy all compliant foods, Yesterday I finished cleaning out a section of my pantry and a section in my fridge of non compliant foods and labeling the drawers with

"PALEO FOODS". I am pretty excited about doing this challenge for the next 30 days but I am also nervous at the same time. I am a little nervous because I am a runner and I usually eat a ton of carbs for energy and with the Paleo diet, I am worried about my carb intake. I realized that I can get carbs from sweet potato and some green veggies but it's not the same as pasta or bread. 

 

Is there a runner in this forum?  If so, what have you done to keep yourself energized and what are your suggestions? What has worked for you and what has not? Your suggestions are always appreciated!

Looking forward to interacting with you all! 

 

There are lots of threads about W30 and running in this section of the forum. Just do a little digging. That said I trained for a half marathon during my W30 if you want to look through my thread (link in the signature) and I've been running and eating Paleo for 10 months now. Your body will adjust to use fat for fuel instead of carbs. Trust the template including the notes on pre/post workout nutrition. The first 2 weeks will be hard on your runs but you will be rewarded for pushing through them.