What should you eat before & after a workout ?

Have you been asking yourself what to eat before you go to your sports session?

Before physical effort, our body needs energy.

To build your endurance, to have more energy, and to build muscle (and lose body fat) our body needs energy. Here are a few ideas to have well balanced meals…

Pre-workout options

We all agree: its a bad idea to over-eat! You cannot do a good workout session on a full stomach. But it is definitely important to have eaten something beforehand. So:

If you are practicing sport in the morning:

1 or 2 hours before sport : you can either have some eggs- fried or boiled with a slice of wholegrain bread and a smoothie; some greek yoghurt with fresh fruit (you can opt for cottage cheese to replace the yoghurt); a banana and a handful of almonds ; along with a nice warm drink.

[x_alert type=”warning”] What does your coach eat before a morning session ? A light breakfast 1h15 before the class. It varies between :

• Fruit (apples, peaches, kiwis, whatever is in season), with greek yoghurt and a few almonts
• Boiled egg with a slice of ham
• Fried egg on wholegrain toast
• Porridge
• Overnight oats with fresh fruit and almonds

I drink a big glass of water when I wake up, and enjoy a coffee with my breakfast! [/x_alert]

If you practice sport during midday or towards the end of the afternoon

Aim for a snack around 11am- or 5pm : go for fruits (rich is water, it helps keep our body hydrated), nuts, yoghurt…

[x_alert type=”info”] What does your coach eat before an evening spin session? My snacks vary between:

• A good handfuls of almonds (unsalted!)
• A glass of milk Kefir
• A yoghurt
• An Pasteleion energy bar- low in sugars and calories, 100% natural- and available at the studio

[/x_alert]

What should we eat after a workout?

Our body needs to rebuild. Our body is most receptive to the foods we eat 30-60minutes after physical effort, so this makes it the ideal time to eat proteins that favour the rebuilding of muscles.

For lunch or dinner, think of salmon and quinoa, chicken and sweet potato, lentil and chickpea salad… the choice is vast!

Think of what is good for our health:

•  Proteins derived from vegetables are an excellent alternative to animal products

• A mix of whole grains and legumes are fantastic: think of quinoa or brown rice mixed with broad beans or lentils… These are all a great source of nutrients, vitamins and fibres.

• Sweat potato, in addition to its carbohydrates, is a good source of vitamins and nutrients such as vitamin B6, C, D, magnesium and potassium.

•  Wholegrain rice and pasta are also great allies to avoid cravings and help recharge your batteries.

[x_alert type=”success”] What does your coach eat? • For lunch : I love salads, so I like to prepare nice big mixed ones. I use whatever is in my fridge- and usually always have lettuce with it. I add either steamed vegetables, tuna, ham, cheese, pasta, sardines… During the winter time, I love homemade vegetable soups! • For dinner : I eat with my children- meat, fish, chicken, vegetables… I avoid pasta if I can- but who can resist a good pasta bolognese!! 😉 • No dessert ? Not usually! Sometimes I will have a yoghurt… [/x_alert]

BUT… !

Nobody can or wants to eat healthy ALL the time! We all have our favourite snacks and meals! Mine are: pancakes, hamburgers (with fries!), pizza from our neighbours Les Cancres, popcorn… We shouldn’t deprive ourselves- but just decide to eat in a balanced way!

Finally- don’t forget to drink enough water throughout the day. Its vital to stay properly hydrated- this will help you recover and avoid cramps and muscle fatigue.

Read our blog on the importance of drinking enough water!L

Our favorite snack pre & post-workout !

Its not always easy to eat well before a workout. If you arrive at the studio on an empty stomach, you won’t have the energy to make the most of your indoor cycling or pilates session.

But fear not! We have you covered… You will discover the amazing energy bars from Pasteleion.

We chose these for the studio because they are 100% natural: vegan, bio, gluten free, low in calories… And they are a mix of the best ingredients from Crete (Greece), including dates, almonds, nuts, raw honey, dark chocolate, dry fruit… and includes a lovely ray of greek sunshine to brighten up our day!

There are no additives or added sugars; and they are cooked at low heat in order to fully preserve all the nutrients. So: enjoy without ANY hesitation!

👉 For more suggestions on what to eat before & after your workout, follow this link!

What is a burnout? How can we manage it, and what lessons can we learn from it?

Always saying “Yes” to everything, putting too much on your endless To Do list, not knowing how to slow down or to stop, not knowing how or when to  say no… We think we are somewhat invincible, but little by little, we start noticing something is up:  we start forgetting things here and there, then we start getting upset over small things, we become less patient with those around us, we sleep badly, we less in control of our emotions…

Do you feel guilty when you don’t finish everything you are ‘supposed to’ do today? We don’t seem to realise that there is always something else ‘important’ to do that we will never get finished… We are so stuck in the stress of it, that we feel it is the end of the world if we don’t get on top of it all. We simply lose track of the fact that, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if we finish our task in a day or two…

It is not easy to acknowledge, or understand when are overworked or overstressed. We tend to react by going into an emotional spiral which blocks our vision and awareness, and so it is very hard to step back and see the solutions in front of us. We tend to just hope that tomorrow things will get easier, and that we will finally find the time to take care of ourselves. But of course this doesn’t happen, because in our current state of mind, work is endless.

If these points ring true to you, don’t wait! Take a break, figure out where you are at, talk to someone you trust, and change the way you tackle things. This should be your Number 1 priority!

There are different levels of burnout, and where we find ourselves on this spectrum isn’t always easy to recognise. Personally, I have felt like my level of fatigue and stress has been building up over the past few years. It came to a head during these last 9 months as I have been dealing with a huge amount- both physically and emotionally. As usually happens in these cases, a little straw broke the camel’s back! I collapsed in my kitchen. Unfortunately, as I fell, I sprained and broke my ankle- something that I’m sure you will agree is not very practical for a spinning coach!!

Like a lot of others, i never took the time to slow down, or put my feet up. Life seems to be made like this: there are lots of cycles- we all go through ups and downs, relaxing periods and stressful periods… but what we don’t always appreciate is that our energy levels drop during these stressful periods, and if we don’t manage ourselves properly and take the time to re-energise, we are not firing on all cylinders and ready to tackle new difficulties as they crop up.

Our reflexive actions and reactions are conditioned by our previous experiences, by our education, by what our parents taught us all those years ago. This episode helped me learn that a life coach can help us identify certain behaviours that don’t work for us any more, and help us to disengage from them. I am lucky to have a coach in my circle of friends, so I called on her for support.

Thanks to these sessions, I was able to understand how important it is to take on challenges with a different frame of mind. I can give you a small example; thanks to her support, I was able to prepare myself for a meeting that would normally be extremely stressful for me. But instead I went with my notes, well prepared, very calm, and I was able to leave the meeting at peace and feeling positive. The fact that I wasn’t stressed during it allowed me to keep my flow thoughts, I was able to express everything I needed to say, and even thought it wasn’t a pleasant meeting, it didn’t affect me like it would have done in the old days. I feel like I came out on top of this all the more, because it was no longer a source of stress for me.

In the majority of cases, we only admit to a burnout when it is too late. Maybe this is because it seems to be a taboo subject these days. It really shouldn’t be. Its down to each of us to keep our balance, to speak about it when we feel the need to, to listen to our bodies and heads, to do sport…

After a few weeks of forced rest, I feel like I have been able to finally rebuild by energy, and I feel like I am back on top again. Sometimes to make that giant leap ahead, we sometimes need to take a few steps back first.

Why is it important to drink water?

Water is vital- not just for our health, but for our physical performance.

By staying hydrated during physical effort, our body is able to maintain its optimum temperature. When our muscles contract, they give off heat (like an engine) which causes a loss water which is used to cool down the body.

Sweat is the technique used by our system to cool the body down and maintain it as close to its normal temperature as possible. During physical effort, our heart is going to focus on pumping to muscles that need it the most. Without proper hydration, our muscles don’t get the attention they need, and we will feel tired faster.

FYI: a loss of 2% in body weight of water leads to a drop in physical performance of 20%.

After any physical performance, it is important to drink throughout the day to minimise muscle pain and to get rid of the toxins released during the effort.

But… how much water is enough?

There is a simple rule: our body needs 0.041 litres per kilo. To know how much water you need to drink per day, just divide your weight in kilos by 24. For example, someone weighing:

• 50 kg needs 50/24= 2.1 litres of water per day
• 60 kg/24 = 2.5 litres/day
• 65 kg/24 = 2.7 litres/day
• 75 kg/24 = 3.1 litres/day

Hydration Calendar: this links you to a site which is a fantastic tool to workout your daily intake according to your general lifestyle. Its also full of great advice!

Water + Spinning

When you carry out sport, you need to drink even more! Because when we do sport, our breathing increases.

If you take a spinning class, you need to drink an extra 1.1 litres of water during the day.

FYI, coffee and juices high in sugar content will dehydrate you. On top of that, our body will create insulin when we drink sugar drinks- which obviously does not help our body when it comes time to burn fat.

If your objective is to lose weight,  weigh yourself before and after your physical exercise. Your weight should be similar because you should be drinking the equivalent of what you sweated out. Weight loss during physical effort is temporary, What matter the most is that your body continues to burn fat after the effort- which is how you will really lose weight consistently.

[x_blockquote type=”center”]Think: water is the only nutrient that your body needs to replace after a sports session![/x_blockquote]

Don’t wait to feel thirsty to drink… Thirst is an indicator that your body is already dehydrated…!

Cheers!