Smashing your workout goals, and feeling accomplished is an unmatchable feeling in the world. Your fitness goals such as losing weight, and building muscle, all depend on your workouts, and what you eat after your workout.
When you are done with your workout, there is a natural desire to eat something to replenish your energy sources. During exercise, your body utilizes the energy and glycogen stored in your muscles. After your workout ends, your body needs a substrate to replenish the glycogen stores.
To provide glycogen to the muscles, your body relies on external energy in the form of food. There is a list of specific foods that you should be eating after your workout, which are ought to increase your energy levels, and help in recovery. For athletes, and lifters, who work out for extended periods, it is important to have a meal right after the workout ends.
While there is a list of some special post-workout meals, some people might experience specific food cravings after the workout. No matter how educated we are about the nutrition that we have to follow, sometimes we give in and listen to our body. But if this practice is repeated continuously, the consequences can be bigger.
For example, if you crave your favorite chocolate smoothie after a workout, you might not achieve your fitness goals. Nutrition plays a key role in your fitness routine, and it should never be ignored. However, there is always a reason for feeling different and craving a specific food.
Your cravings might be different from those of someone else around you, but one thing common in every one of you is the craving for processed foods, sweets, and unhealthy fats. Food cravings can impact your healthy eating routine a lot, and can even gulf all the workout benefits.
Here, you will get to know about some foods that you are likely to crave after exercise, and what exactly it means to crave them.
What Are Food Cravings?
You know the drill when you are working on your body, trying to eat healthy, focusing on your exercise routine, and then all of a sudden hit by a sudden desire of eating a specific food that, according to fitness rules, you should not be eating. That’s what we call a food craving.
Many of us go through this phase. The food we crave is more often a sugary food item, a salty food, or a fatty meal. Sometimes, you even crave the combination of the three. More than a natural desire, our brains have an important role to play in inducing a craving.
According to some experimental studies, depriving food is likely to induce and increase food cravings. That being said, it is safe to say that when you think a specific food is not good for you or does not fit your fitness norms, you eliminate it from your diet completely.
Once you stop having that food, your brain forces you to think about it even more. Your brain sends signals to the body, and that makes you excited about having that food. You can have a food craving right after you had your dinner. And if at that point, you have that food, you exceed your total calories, resulting in disruption of your fitness goals.
Food cravings can pop up at any time. Whether you are at work or are having a peaceful day at home, you can have a food craving, and no, it is not connected with hunger pangs. Food cravings if monitored properly are not bad, but if you eat mindlessly, there would be problems.
According to research, chronic stress has a bigger role to play in food cravings, which in turn affects body mass index. Apart from that, food cravings can also increase your risk of developing medical conditions such as diabetes, and hypertension.
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Reasons To Crave Foods
Food cravings are common in almost half of the US population according to some reports. However, with monitoring, and control, food cravings can be dealt perfectly. Food cravings can be:
- Cognitive – which is thinking about a specific food continuously.
- Emotional – A change in mood, or a desire to eat food.
- Behavioral – Looking for a portion of specific food and then consuming it.
- Physiological – Salivation
Some of the reasons to crave food are below:
- Food cravings can be because of specific mood states. Research shows often a negative food is likely to increase the craving for food.
- Another common reason to crave food is environmental cues. Peer pressure is another common reason that influences a response toward a food item.
- Your sleep patterns and duration are also likely to affect your food cravings.
- In some cases, a disturbance in your hunger hormones, such as ghrelin, and leptin is also likely to affect your food intake.
- After exercise, you are likely to experience a food craving because your body is looking to recover the lost energy.
4 Common Foods To Crave
Food cravings after exercise is your body telling you something. Following are some of the foods that you might crave after exercise and what they mean:
1. Salt Craving
Sweating and exercise are two things that are always seen together. Regular exercise works perfectly for you to achieve your goals, and it might also be a reason you are craving salty food. Long and intense exercise sessions mean you sweat more, and lose more sodium from your cells.
Sodium is an electrolyte that maintains a normal cellular process. It also leaves your body when you sweat. Sports drinks always have a specific concentration of sodium so that your body does not suffer from lost sodium.
The harder you exercise, the more sodium is needed in the body, and if you don’t work to replenish it on time, you might experience a sudden desire to have salty food. To avoid this craving after exercise, ensure that you are staying hydrated throughout the day and have electrolyte-rich meals.
Related article: Tips for Athletes to Prevent Dehydration
An electrolyte drink after and during your workout will help you in restoring the lost sodium. Coconut water is the best option to have as it contains the richest form of all electrolytes that your body needs.
2. Craving Sugar
Well, it may be a universal rule to not touch sugary food after exercise, but some people still have a craving for them. Ideally, you should not be devouring a bar of chocolate of your favorite jam after your workout, but if you are craving sugar, try to be creative by monitoring the amount in different recipes.
Sugars are not always bad for you, but only if taken in moderation and from the right sources. When you crave sugar after a workout, your body is feeling low in energy and wants an instant source to pump up the processes happening inside.
While exercising, the body majorly relies on carbs, and if you are doing long and intense workouts, your fuel is likely to get empty towards the end of your workout. Rather than opting for sugary foods such as chocolates, which evoke a sugar spike, resulting in other health problems, go for some healthier options.
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You can always have a post-workout meal ready for you that you could eat instantly after your workout. The best options might be some fruits such as banana, oatmeal, hummus, or a bran bread slice that keeps your energy high for a longer time, and also provide good bacterias to your gut.
3. Fat Craving
Each food you crave is a sign that your body is trying to tell you. You have to look for these signs so that a proper solution can be made on time to solve the problem. The reason you are craving fried food or a fatty meal is that your body is deficient in essential fatty acids.
Fats are not always bad. Good sources of fats help in a variety of human body functions such as forming membranes, acting as an energy source, and helping in hormonal and cellular processes. That is why you always have to include good and rich sources of fats in your diet.
Restricting fats too much produces food cravings which if continued for a longer run, would be harmful to your health. Even though the body is deficient in healthy fatty acids, you will recover this loss by eating fried and fatty meals, resulting in heart and cholesterol problems.
It is best to avoid trans and saturated fats present in different foods. The ideal option would be to include healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, and all good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. It will help in a variety of body functions and would help in achieving your fitness goals.
4. Protein Craving
Post-workout cravings are a real deal and must be catered to properly. Out of all the food items, when you are craving chicken steak or minced beef, you might think you are going in the right direction since your body is eating a good amount of protein needed to build muscle.
The best meal to have after a workout is a combination of carbs and proteins. It will help you in giving protein to your muscle, and carbs for a healthy balance of blood sugar levels. But the food amount here has to be monitored properly.
Related article: 5 Best Post-Workout Protein Shakes For Strong Muscles
If you are into more vigorous workouts, which go for one hour or beyond, you need a big meal with more calories, proteins, and carbs to keep you going. But for less intense workouts, calories have to be monitored since you want some goals to achieve.
No matter what you eat, always make sure you are getting it from the right sources. A healthy diet containing multiple food groups will be beneficial for you in the longer run.
Final Words
Food cravings after a workout are common, and there is no harm in listening to your body. However, make sure that you are always mindful of your food intake. The food you eat should not be exceeding your required calories.
You can always give a taste of your favorite food to your body but never exceed it. Breaking into different meals, opting for a healthy substitute, or mixing it with recipes is a healthy approach to fight your carvings.
Now that you know what each food craving means, staying educated and making informed decisions would help you satisfy your cravings and stick to your nutrition goals.
