Several months ago, the good folks at Precision Nutrition published an article entitled “Is Nutrient Timing Dead?”
In it, they reviewed research that challenges a lot of the long standing beliefs that people “must get” carbs and protein within 30 minutes of a workout, or else they wouldn’t see any gains…
Obviously, our understanding of human physiology has evolved quite a bit in the past 5 years. It does appear that there isn’t some magical anabolic window that requires you to eat nutrient at specific times.
At first blush, this seems to run counter to the goal we’ve established for this module… but when you actually delve into it, it actually aligns quite well.
Our focus with keeping fruits and starches to post-workout isn’t so much about taking advantage of an anabolic window, as much as it about making you aware that we don’t need huge, carbohydrate meals for the vast majority of our sedentary day.
So as a coaching cue, keeping fruits and carbohydrates to days and times when we are most active, while loading up on veggies, fats and proteins at other times, actually makes good physiological sense!