What if I don't usually have time to workout until late at night. If I eat dinner at 6 or 6:30, how soon after that can I workout? And then I know I've read about eating a 4:1 carbrotein meal afterwards but should I do that since I shouldn't eat within 3 hours of bedtime?Should I just have a glass of juice or piece of fruit or something or skip it if I don't feel like I need it? My plan is to eat at 6:30, workout around 8:30 and not eat anything after that because I go to bed at 10:30 or 11. Please let me know if this is okay or how I can adjust things to make it work better.

[This message was edited by Advice Staff on 07-11-03 at 11:30 AM.]

It depends.

Okay, you might want a bit more detail. This is a great question and it's answer depends on a few things. In terms of eating a recovery meal or snack it is dependant on how hard you worked out. If you completely extinguished you body's stored blood glycogen, then you'd want to eat at least 100 cals (but never more than about 300) in a 4:1 combo, even if it were right before bed. However, if you dilly-dallied or were doing a moderate cardio workout you it may be better to drink a glass of water, or perhaps a small protein shake with very little carb or fat content (preferably whey w/glutamine) and go to bed. The reason is that if you did much work in your anaerobic pathways (if you spent a lot of the workout pumped) then you caused a lot of microtrauma to occur in your muscles. When this occurs, the 4:1 snack will greatly improve you recovery. It's a huge difference. Not eating will result in slower recovery, essentially lessening the effect of your hard work. Taking in just protein is a good tactic if you're unsure. Then at least you'll be giving your muscles the protein they need to rebuild. What you sacrifice is the speed in which its absorbed. It's shown if you can speed up recharge you can increase recovery by 25% over using just protein.

Now, about dinner. If you eat a large dinner you should wait as long as possble. However, after a smaller dinner working out after an hour is fine. You can workout an hour after a large meal also but your effectiveness is slightly compromised by undigested food in your stomach. But always wait an hour. Eating within an hour of working out causes your insulin to rise and results in carbs being burned too quickly instead of being saved til you need them. This can result in what's called bonking, where your glycogen stores are extinguished and you run out of energy during the part of the workout where you really need to attack, near the end.