After putting in your best at your workout, it’s now time to ensure you pay the same attention to your post-workout nutrition fuel of choice.

Ensuring you consume the right nutrients after you’ve worked out will help you to achieve a better recovery as well as ensure your composition and performance are at their absolute best post-workout.

Why Post-Workout Nutrition Matters

Just like we brought you recipe inspiration for pre-workout meals, the below five recipes have been carefully planned for everyone to enjoy including those with little to lots of time after working out.

And just like when preparing to workout it is important to nourish your body right ahead of time, it is equally as important to do so after working out also. This is because post workout you have damaged your tissue at a microlevel in the body and will be energy depleted too. This is all very normal, and to achieve your health and fitness goals this is needed. But this is also why it is vital to help ensure the repair and energy reboot takes place correctly therefore to not hinder your progress by feeding the body what it needs to enable protein turnover.

Ensuring the body can do this well means making up a post-workout meal consisting of clean antibiotic free protein sources (ensuring they are complete if you are a vegan which all of our plant based recipes are below) and that they have some healthy carbohydrates alongside them as well as other macronutrients. A rough guide for this is to try to stick to a 2:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio.

Post-Workout Meal 1: Egg Omelette With Sweet Potato Toast (Gluten Free And Dairy Free)

Yield: 1 meal

Ingredients:

• 3 organic free range eggs
• 2 tablespoons dairy free milk
• homemade tomato sauce
• 2 slices of gluten free sweet potato bread (can be any type of bread)
• coconut oil

Instructions:

1. Whisk the eggs. Heat up the pan and add the eggs to it with a little melted coconut oil to stop the omelette sticking.
2. Let it cook thoroughly on the one side, picking up the edges all around when the omelette has started solidifying to ensure it doesn’t stick, and on the one side once done, pick it up higher than the others and drain the uncooked egg on top, letting it fall to the bottom of the pan.
3. Once this is golden brown, flip the omelette. Cooking for a further 4-5 minutes until this side is also golden brown and thoroughly cooked.
4. Toast your bread of choice and serve with the omelette and homemade tomato sauce.
5. Enjoy as a nutritious dairy and gluten free post-workout meal.

Nutritional Information Per Meal:

Carbohydrate - 38.68g

Protein - 33.54g

Total lipid (fat) - 37.04g

Iron, Fe - 10.25 mg

Calcium, Ca - 220 mg

Post-Workout Meal 2: Whole Grain Crackers With Hummus And Avocado

Yield: 1 meal

Ingredients:

• organic pre-made hummus (1 tub)
• 8 wholegrain crackers
• ½ avocado (sliced)

Instructions:

1. This is a really simple one when you are time strapped! Take some store bought fresh organic hummus, spread on your wholegrain crackers and top with fresh avocado slices.
2. Enjoy as a nutritious plant based / vegan post-workout meal.

Nutritional Information Per Meal:

Carbohydrate -  73.76g

Protein - 15.67g

Total lipid (fat) -  42.63g

Iron, Fe - 5.42 mg

Calcium, Ca - 163 mg

Post Workout Meal 3: Quinoa Fruit And Nut Bowl

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa (rinsed and boiled)
• ½ cup strawberries (rinsed and sliced)
• ½ cup blueberries (rinsed)
• ½ cup nuts (for this we chose pecan nuts but any will work)
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons almond milk

Instructions:

1. Add all the ingredients to the pre-cooked quinoa, give it a good mix then topping with more fruit and nuts if you desire.
2. Enjoy as a nutritious plant based / vegan post-workout meal.

Nutritional Information Per Meal:

Carbohydrate - 177.03g

Protein - 30.38g

Total lipid (fat) - 47.8g

Iron, Fe - 9.87 mg

Calcium, Ca - 180 mg

Post Workout Meal 4. Grilled chicken with roasted vegetables

Ingredients:

• 1-2 organic hormone free chicken breast fillets
• 3 carrots (rinsed and sliced)
• 1 cup of purple beetroot (washed and sliced)
• 1 cup of candy striped beetroot (washed and sliced)
• 1 cup broccoli (washed and sliced)
• avocado oil
• Herbamare seasoning that includes salt (optional / organic and vegan)

Yield: 2 meals

Instructions:

1. Prepare all the vegetables and add everything except the chicken fillets and the beetroot to a roasting tray. Top with avocado oil and bake at 200 degrees centigrade for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from the oven and flip the vegetables, ensuring they are totally covered in oil. Adding the chicken breasts to the tray.
3. Cook for a further 15 minutes, and then remove from the oven finally adding the broccoli.
4. Roast for a further 5 minutes and remove from the oven once everything is cooked evenly and thoroughly, especially the chicken.
5. Enjoy this nutritious post-workout meal that will give you enough for two meals. Allowing you to eat more as dinner or store and save in the fridge for the next day after your gym workout.

Nutritional Information Per Meal: 

Carbohydrate - 63.39g

Protein - 92.63g

Total lipid (fat) - 3.2g

Iron, Fe - 5.69 mg

Calcium, Ca - 188 mg

Post-Workout Meal 5. Baked Beans on Toast with Buckwheat Toast 

Ingredients:

• ½ tin organic baked beans (choose BPA free tins)
• 2 slices gluten free buckwheat toast
• organic extra virgin coconut oil

Instructions:

1. Warm your baked beans on the hob. (If beans make you bloated, try cooking them with a little nori/seaweed - this should reduce or even eliminate this).
2. Toast your bread and spread a little coconut oil on in place of butter.
3. Top with the baked beans and enjoy as a nutritious and quick plant based, high in protein, post-workout meal.

Nutritional Information Per Meal:

Carbohydrate - 59.42g

Protein - 11.75g

Total lipid (fat) - 15.15g

Iron, Fe - 1.72 mg

Calcium, Ca - 75 mg

Fuel Up Sooner Than Later Post-Workout

Whilst everyone is an individual when it comes to finding the best time to refuel with a post-workout meal, an ideal general guide according to research is to ensure you eat a well balanced carbohydrate to protein meal within 30-60 minutes of completing your workout.

There can also be a lot of confusion and even added stress when working out fitness plans, fitness goals as well as entering pre and post workout nutrition into the mix. This is why we have tried to remove that headache for you and have focused down on giving clear but simple guidelines here on We Are Half Human to help support you whether you are a total fitness newbie to an experienced hand in this fitness game in the form of this post and our pre-workout meal recipe ideas article.

The only times your nutrition intake will change slightly for both the pre-workout meals and the post-workout meal ideas is if you are training for a fitness competition, bodybuilding or you are an athlete. As these types of scenarios increase your nutrition needs. But for those of you just looking to get fitter and are in good overall health, our meal plans we have provided should give you everything you need to get going and achieve your health and fitness goals.