1 Reason Your Workout Is Preventing You From Losing Weight

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Refueling after a workout is an important part of any fitness routine—the right nutrition choices can help you replenish your energy stores, build and maintain muscle, and rehydrate after sweating it out. However, when it comes to post-workout food choices, you can have too much of a good thing—and too much can mean not meeting your weight-loss goals

Successful weight loss comes down to creating a calorie deficit, but you still need to make sure that you’re eating enough to keep you powered up during your workouts and fuel muscle recovery. But, it’s also totally normal to feel hungrier once you start an exercise routine. So while fueling and refueling is important, you want to make sure you’re not overdoing it because that might be preventing you from seeing the results you’re after. And the adage is true—you can’t out-exercise a bad diet.

“A lot of times when people start a new exercise regimen they’ll take a one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition,” explains Nora Minno, R.D., C.P.T., an NYC-based registered dietitian and personal trainer. “For example, they’ll see what a lot of athletes, fitness competitors, or professional CrossFitters are eating post-workout and model their diet after that. The thing is, you have to do what’s right for you.”

“When I first started lifting weights, I ran into this problem myself,” she adds. “I was so concerned with making my post-workout meal effective and supportive of my fitness efforts, that I ended up exceeding my calorie needs. After a brief moment of frustration, I realized I just needed to tweak my caloric intake. After that, my body was burning fat and building lean muscle the way it was supposed to!”

The lesson? It’s important to make nutritious and strategic choices after a sweat session. While consuming a calorie- and carb-heavy protein bar may be appropriate for a hardcore athlete, for the average exerciser, that might be overdoing it. Aim for 10 to 20 grams of protein to help rebuild muscle, and include some carbs to replenish your glycogen stores, which your body uses for energy.

If you’re making smart post-workout food choices and staying within your caloric needs (here’s how to find how many calories you should eat to lose weight), working out can be a great way to help with your calorie deficit—just make sure you’re not overcompensating when you refuel. Here are four ways to make sure your post-workout snacking routine is working for you, not against you:

Related: 10 Strength-Training Tips For Beginners That Will Make Your Workout More Effective

1. Make sure you’re rehydrating after a workout.

While burning calories can make you hungrier, you may be confusing some of your post-exercise hunger with thirst. “Drink 16 to 32 ounces of water after a workout,” suggests Amelia DiDomenico, C.P.T., master trainer at Crunch Gyms. “Water replenishment is an essential aspect of your post-workout routine.” 

2. Try tracking your calories for a while to get a better picture of what you’re consuming.

“Track your food just learn a little bit about nutrition and how many calories are in the food that you eat every day,” says DiDomenico. “It’s like the opposite of a bank account—we want more coming in than going out,” she adds. “Just like looking at your spending, it is important to become aware of how much energy you are eating and how much energy you are truly expending.” You don’t have to resign yourself to counting calories forever—just doing it for a week or two can help you be more conscious about your calorie intake. Here’s how to keep track in a safe and healthy way.

3. And consider wearing a heart-rate monitor to see how many calories you’re actually burning, too. 

This helpful gadget will keep tabs on your intensity and measure your caloric burn—here’s how to choose the heart-rate monitor that’s right for you.

4. As a rule of thumb, you can add about 200 calories to your post-workout diet after an hour of hard exercise. 

“For about every hour of exercise you do each day, I would recommend adding about 200 to 250 calories to your diet post-workout,” says Minno. “Make sure you’re getting in good-quality protein and complex carbohydrates.” So before you recreate that huge post-workout snack idea from Instagram, consider your own needs. Here are a few ideas for balanced post-workout snacks, all around 200 calories.

While fitness is an important part of losing weight, your diet is important too. But with a healthy balance of both, you can successfully lose weight in a timely and healthy way.

You may also like: A Simple Fat-Burning Workout You Can Do At Home

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