Eating after a workout is important To understand how the right foods can help you after exercise,

 it’s important to learn how physical activity affects your body.

 When you’re working out, your muscles use up their glycogen — the body’s preferred fuel source especially during high- intensity workouts. 

This results in your muscles being partially depleted of glycogen. Some of the proteins in your muscles can also be broken down and damaged (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source). 

After your workout, your body tries to rebuild its glycogen stores as well as repair and regrow those muscle proteins. Eating the right nutrients soon after you exercise can help your body get this done faster. It’s especially important to eat carbs and protein after your workout. Doing this helps your body: decrease muscle protein breakdown increase muscle protein synthesis (growth) restore glycogen stores enhance recovery

To understand how the right foods can help you after exercise, it’s important to learn how physical activity affects your body.

When you’re working out, your muscles use up their glycogen — the body’s preferred fuel source especially during high- intensity workouts. This results in your muscles being partially depleted of glycogen. Some of the proteins in your muscles can also be broken down and damaged (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source).

After your workout, your body tries to rebuild its glycogen stores as well as repair and regrow those muscle proteins. Eating the right nutrients soon after you exercise can help your body get this done faster. It’s especially important to eat carbs and protein after your workout.

Doing this helps your body:

Many people think that eating fat after a workout slows down digestion and inhibits the absorption of nutrients. While fat might slow down the absorption of your post-workout meal, it will not reduce its benefits. For example, a study showed that whole milk was more effective at promoting muscle growth after a workout than skim milk (17Trusted Source).

Moreover, another study showed that even when ingesting a high fat meal (45% energy from fat) after working out, muscle glycogen synthesis was not affected (18Trusted Source).

It might be a good idea to limit the amount of fat you eat after exercise, but having some fat in your post-workout meal will not affect your recovery.