In this article we'll cover the most important aspect of your personal fitness and fat loss program and that is your nutrition.  Depending on who you talk to, your nutrition, the food that you're putting in your mouth, makes up 70-80% of your fitness fat loss game plan.  You can workout until you're blue in the face but you're not going to lose any weight until you can really start to master what you're putting in your pie hole.  The focus of this article will be what I believe to be the most important meal of the day. 

Now while most people will say that the most important meal of the day is breakfast there is one that is even more important than that and it's your post workout meal.  This is the meal that you're going to eat after a very intense resistance workout session.  It's important to understand that the disgestive system is the most incredibly vascular system in the body which means that it needs a lot of blood to do it's work.  After a workout the blood that is normally available to your stomach to aid in the digestive process is in your legs, in your back and in your buns or whichever area you just finished working out and because of that it works very, very, slow. 

The reason it's important to understand your digestive system is because if you were to eat a meal that would normally be good, for example a chicken breast and a salad, you're going to miss your two hour window of opportunity after an intense workout to shell in the proteins. You're going to end up missing that two our window of opportunity because a meal like a chicken breast and a salad will take too long to digest.  So what you need to do is eat a meal that's already pre-digested so that your body will be able to digest it very quickly to start the recovery process after an intense workout.  A great example of a meal that fits that bill is whey protein and a high glycemic carbohydrate like a banana.

The goal should be to consume a meal like this roughly between 30-60 minutes after an intense weight training session.  When you will need to eat during that 30-60 minute window depends on a lot of variables, for example if your metabolism is slow you'd want to wait about sixty minutes, and if your metabolism is faster you'll want to eat closer to thirty minutes.  The size of your post workout meal also depends on your specific size, we can break this up into three main categories of people, smaller people around 120-140 pounds, medium which is about 150-180 pounds and then let's go with the big boys which will be 200 pounds plus.  For smaller people you'll need 15-20 grams of whey protein, medium will need approximately 20-30 grams of whey protein and for the big boys you'll need between 35-45 grams of weight protein.  As far as the carbs go, small will need about half a banana, medium will need a full banana and big will need about a banana and a half. 

When it comes to whey protein quality is very important, don't go with a cheap brand you'll want at least a medium to higher grade.  Preferably  the protein will come from cows that were grass fed and not grain fed.  You're going to have to pay a little bit more but it's really going to be worth it.  Additionally, organic bananas are probably a good idea. 

For my personal recipe I like to use half vanilla protein and half chocolate protein and I mix it up in a blender bottle because it's quicker, once it's in the blender ball pour in some ice water and shake it up, go ahead and drink that and eat your banana and you're good to go.  It's not as nice as putting it in a blender but you save about 15 to 20 minutes in prep and cleanup time.