How important is it to eat after evening workout?

Question

I'm starting a new job, and trying to craft my schedule, knowing that I have a few restrictions that I need to take into consideration.

• The most important restriction is that I cannot eat within 3-4 hours of going to sleep (medical reasons).
• I want to keep my eating restricted to a maximum of 11 hours window.
• I'm eating ketogenic, mostly because of how it makes me feel mentally, and because I can eat less volume of food that's more calorically dense (less important for the crux of the question, but worth mentioning).
• I want to get 8h of sleep.

I'm thinking of waking up at 7am, meditating 1h, eating breakfast, and the going to the office. Eating my last meal at 4:30 PM, and going to the gym at 6 PM.

At the gym I'm thinking of doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength. I've been doing crossfit for the last two years, but I'm ready to step up my strength training. After training I want to do a sauna session, and then go home, chill out, and go to bed at 11 PM. No eating after gym because I would get out of my 11h window, but must importantly, I would be eating to close to my bed time.

My question is: If I get all the calories I need, and the correct macros in my feeding schedule (between 8 AM - 4:30 PM), does it matter that I don't after training?

Answer 1

As long as you have the proper amount of nutrients, vitamins, proteins, good lipids absorbed each day... it's not so important to eat after an evening workout because :

• you can't directly decide how is managed the food ingested, your intestines do. So whatever meal rythm you take, your body will always try to adjust automatically to deliver the best energy with what you put inside ;

• Digestion is a process that last many hours, for most people, so if you eat a lot after your workout, it will be digested very late (and maybe disturb your sleep). On the other hand, try to adjust the right balance, not to go to bed with an empty stomach. Maybe eating a fruit at 6 or 7 would be good.

• It is indeed better to get your calories sooner than later : the sooner you get the proteins, vitamins, etc. the easier it is for your body to manage them since everything is available in the first half of the day

Have fun !