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Original poster

Tell me your honest opinion of this post-exercise food pls

87 replies

tulips27 · 19/11/2022 20:32

I've exercised all morning today and for some reason I've got really ravenous and I think I've undone all my work (although I'm not exercising for weight loss in particular).

Breakfast: two black coffees
Cycle 5 miles
Swim 45 minutes

Post swim snack: banana from my bag, a few nuts (so far so good)

Now at this point I would normally go home and eat nothing till my evening meal, but because the weather was so nice I treated myself to a Tesco meal deal which I never do because I can't afford it! I just got carried away.

Meal deal: Brie and cranberry sandwich, hot chocolate

Cycle 5 miles

Evening meal: two samosas and a side salad (no dressing)

Then (!) I was still hungry and this is where things got out of control, I've just demolished another samosa and a small bag of kettle chips from the meal deal that I was saving.

So if you look at it, I've ended up putting away a lot of unhealthy food and probably lost my gains from exercising at all. But I was soooo hungry, I still am. I could eat another dinner right now if I'm totally honest. 😩

Regular exercisers, where am I going wrong? I'm starving. Any advice welcome.

OP posts:
Lastqueenofscotland2 · 20/11/2022 08:07

LunaLoveLemon · 20/11/2022 07:33

Stop prescribing moral judgement to food and eat more. By denying yourself food, you will fail to see any increased fitness and you’ll just end up binging on less-nutritious foods as your body will be craving a quick calorie hit.

This.

it’s not enough food at all OP

LunaLoveLemon · 20/11/2022 07:33

Stop prescribing moral judgement to food and eat more. By denying yourself food, you will fail to see any increased fitness and you’ll just end up binging on less-nutritious foods as your body will be craving a quick calorie hit.

Gumreduction · 20/11/2022 07:02

Op - how old are you? What’s your daily activity like ie when not exercising

urbanbuddha · 20/11/2022 00:25

Glad you liked the ideas. The BBC Food website, among others, has loads of interesting recipes for healthy eating.

AtomicBlondeRose · 19/11/2022 23:32

Cooking, any sort of cooking, uses a fairly small
amount of energy, unless you are roasting or baking stuff in an oven for hours and hours on end. No meal for one person could use any significant amount of electricity unless you are really on a very very tight budget - and even then you could use a microwave for a very small cost to make a wide variety of food, you can fry things very quickly, use a toaster etc - any of these will cost probably less than 10p to use for a meal.

Bunce1 · 19/11/2022 23:26

Pre work out

beet juice
Tumeric, ginger shot

breakfast post work out
choc soy nilk
green smoothie (homemade- kale, spin, tropical fruit mix)
banana and peanut butter or egg & Avo on toast

lunch
pumpkin soup, home made croutons, Greek yog
some fruit

supper
chicken fajitas with loads of veg, tortillas, guac, cheese, salsa, NO rice.

Luredbyapomegranate · 19/11/2022 23:26

Op it does sound you have some real issues with food - if you don’t have an eating disorder, you are heading that way, so pull yourself up now.

we all need to eat regular meals with protein and fibre, never mind if you are exercising that much. Why on earth wouldn’t you eat lunch? And why eat such a tiny dinner?

You are going to make yourself ill if you carry on like this.

Look up NHS healthy eating guidance (it might be a bit low in protein for an exerciser like you but it’s a lot better than you are eating now). You are diving into non-nutritious food like crisps and samosas because you aren’t eating nearly enough.

There are lots of threads on here on how to eat well on a tight budget.

Dreikanter · 19/11/2022 23:20

Chocolate milk is good for immediate post exercise recovery - take it within 20 minutes of finishing.

But you need to seriously up your protein intake to repair / retain / build muscle mass.

Original poster
tulips27 · 19/11/2022 23:12

Thanks for the amazing meal suggestions to everyone that made them. Especially oat biscuits with cheese, soup and chickpea salad, daal or paneer, porridge, chickpea curry, peanut butter, carrot and lentil soup. All good stuff! 'm off to bed now, all to be repeated tomorrow. Maybe I'll do better. Really appreciate the help.

OP posts:
Original poster
tulips27 · 19/11/2022 23:10

I also had an onion bhaji and a samosa, not two samosas. Maybe you should report me.

OP posts:
Original poster
tulips27 · 19/11/2022 23:10

It's lime juice 🙄

OP posts:
TomTraubertsBlues · 19/11/2022 23:08

tulips27 · 19/11/2022 22:49

It's not, actually I took photos so I'm linking them because I can't upload them here directly:

i.imgur.com/pnO1RSn.jpg
i.imgur.com/Ruv87qk.jpg

Show quote history

The salad in that photo has dressing/sauce on it. Your post says no dressing.

ivykaty44 · 19/11/2022 23:05

Use a slow cooker, hot food for pennies.

you can make jacket potato
chickpea curry

cheap eats ti keep you going for days
Dahl
Peanut butter & chickpeas are protein foods
Beans high in protein and fibre

TomTraubertsBlues · 19/11/2022 23:01

On the off chance that you're real, OP - I'm a frequent exerciser, and my weight is healthy, and this is what I ate today, which was a heavy exercise day -

Exercise: mountain running, +4hrs, >1000m of ascent
Breakfast: home-made muesli with whole milk, banana, tea
During the run: 2 cheese & salad wholemeal wraps, 1 home-made energy ball (dates & seeds etc.), half a flapjack, a few sweets, some diluted orange juice (proper juice mixed with water)
Dinner: (ate out) sweet potato soup, followed by sea trout with various veg, new potatoes & a creamy sauce, 1 beer
Supper: small slice of ginger cake

Normally there would be more veg, but veg isn't easy to eat on the run.

urbanbuddha · 19/11/2022 22:59

Make yourself a big pot of spicy carrot and lentil soup that you can have before meals, and have porridge with nuts, banana and milk for breakfast.

Original poster
tulips27 · 19/11/2022 22:59

@ivykaty44 I meant energy, not heat. It means I'm having things that can be eaten cold or only cooked quickly on a hob. But as it happens, I'm also not using heating either, like a lot of people. I;m in the south so it's not too bad yet.

OP posts:
ivykaty44 · 19/11/2022 22:54

I'm avoiding using heat to save money on the electricity bill.

why would this mean you eat samosas?

TomTraubertsBlues · 19/11/2022 22:53

Gumreduction · 19/11/2022 21:32

My spidey senses tell me exercise addiction. And eating disorder

100%

If true, it's extremely disordered eating.

felded · 19/11/2022 22:50

A whole samosa! That would keep me fed for a week, even after a 10mile run!"

yep

Original poster
tulips27 · 19/11/2022 22:49

TomTraubertsBlues · 19/11/2022 22:39

Tbh, the more I look at this thread, the more I think that it's a wind-up, designed to bring the MN undereaters out ("A whole samosa! That would keep me fed for a week, even after a 10mile run!")

It's not, actually I took photos so I'm linking them because I can't upload them here directly:

i.imgur.com/pnO1RSn.jpg
i.imgur.com/Ruv87qk.jpg

OP posts:
felded · 19/11/2022 22:49

That's not much exercise really.

🙄

Cheeseandlobster · 19/11/2022 22:49

Gumreduction · 19/11/2022 21:32

My spidey senses tell me exercise addiction. And eating disorder

This. Your post is actually extremely worrying and you sound like you have disordered eating

urbanbuddha · 19/11/2022 22:48

The average protein content of a handful of nuts is 6.8g. The daily protein requirement for a woman is about 45g.

AutumnIsMyFavouriteSeason · 19/11/2022 22:48

After exercising like you did I would first have a protein shake (vegetarian here and without this I'd never cross 30g of protein in a day despite best attempts!). Then I'd follow this with a high protein, medium carb meal like 2 eggs with 1 toast and salad. This would replenish my energy without adding back too many calories and keep me going until dinner.

When doing cardio I try to time it before a meal as I am ravenous right after.

NoDairyNoProblem · 19/11/2022 22:41

You need to eat more of the right things-

B.Microwave porridge with nuts (optional warned frozen berries)
S. Banana and nuts
L. Scrambled egg (could add spinach, tomato etc) and wm toast
D. Chickpea and veg curry with wm pitta
S. Natural yogurt and fruit

Batch cooking then freezing portions to defrost/microwave could be used for curries, stews, soups etc.
The rest are microwaveable.