Recovery Smoothies

Fen Grinder

Hi All,
I'm not sure if i hit the right Forum or not, but i'm after some advice from anybody that knows anything about nutrition etc.
I've started to make my own smoothies after a good ride or rollers session.
At the moment I'm sticking to basic ingredients, Banana, Milk, suger-free peanut butter, Ice. It's the extra's i'm not sure about.
Following a recommendation in one magazine i've bought some and add 'ground Flax Seed' and pumpkin seeds, it's just nowhere mentions how much i should be adding.
At the moment i'm adding 10g Flax and 5g Pumpkin seeds to about 500ml of juice. Is this too much or not enough?
Then there's protein. I would like to add protein but have heard that whey is not all its cracked up to be, so does anybody have another source of protein that i could add?
And while we're on the subject any other secret ingredients?
Thanks All

bobmcstuff

I would suggest that between the milk and the peanut butter there will already be a decent amount of protein in there. A swift googling suggesting that peanut butter is around 25% protein and the semi skimmed milk in my fridge being about 3.5g/100ml protein. Milk isn't an awful recovery drink on it's own.

Can't help you with the seeds and that though sorry.

Personally I drink nesquick in semi skimmed milk, almost exactly 2:1 carbs:protein and incredibly delicious

sloppyschleckonds

I've read somewhere broccoli is good for the cardiovascular system

Lance swore by vegetable smoothies. Not necessarily just recovery though.

hypster

If you do a search on recovery drinks in general you will get a variety of opinions ranging from "unecessary" through chocolate milk to all sorts of wierd and wonderful concoctions which contain "Ingredient X" guaranteed to put lead in your pencil.

It also depends on what sort of training you do and what you are trying to achieve whether or not a recovery drink is beneficial. The harder and more frequently you train, the harder it is to recover fully between sessions and the more benefit you will get from paying attention to getting a recovery drink down as soon after you finish as possible.

I usually drink a recovery smoothie with impact whey protein after a hard ride of two hours or more and find it helps with rehydration and seems to help tired muscles recover a bit quicker. There are really no secret ingredients that are going to help you barring what you have already proposed. I would say just keep it simple and create something to your own taste. I personally wouldn't bother with the seeds as I find they make the drink a bit gritty but that's a personal call. If you think they will help you then by all means use them.

My main ingredients are a banana, some frozen pinapple, some berries for taste, 20g of unflavoured impact whey protein, a teaspoon of honey and 300 ml of milk. If I'm feeling lazy (or knackered!) I also keep some chocolate milk in the fridge as well when I can't be bothered to make a smoothie or I just fancy a change.

meanredspider

Mrs MRS bought me a NutriBullet (high-ish powered blender with convenient cup flasks) but actually then snaffled it for herself. I'm quite impressed though. Most of the recipes start with about 50% "greens" (spinach, spring greens etc) then fruit and some seeds - then water. The seeds are "milled" with a different blade first so that they aren't gritty. I've only tried it a couple of times but I'm picking one up today for my flat here. The recipe book should give quantities of seeds.

JayKosta

Typical suggestions and content of 'recovery foods' include about 20 grams of easy to digest protein, and between 2X and 4X that amount of carbs (mainly sugar).
That amount of protein can be digested fairly quickly and easily to help the rebuild and healing of stressed muscles. The carbs are to replenish what has been used during the exercise session.
It is generally thought that consuming some recovery nutrition within about 30 minutes of completion of exercise gives best results.

This nutrition can be gotten from many sources - specialty foods, regular meals, recovery products, etc. For many people a packaged 'recovery product' gives convenience and reasonable cost. Try to find something that you will actually USE on a regular basis. Be sure to consider cost, preparation, and clean-up.

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

gubber12345

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

I've read somewhere broccoli is good for the cardiovascular system

Lance swore by vegetable smoothies. Not necessarily just recovery though.

yeah but Lance swore he was clean too

napoleond

I use banana (carbs, potassium, alkali), spinach (alkali, anti-inflammatory), milk and chocolate protein powder (errrrm, protein).
I bought a good blender when it was on sale. Best kitchen thingy I've ever bought. Makes AMAZING milk shakes for the kids too
If I have berries or kiwi spare I chuck them in too.
Seems to work very well for me - quick, easy, cheap, effective.

cabbageandbacon

I just drink a pint of milk.

imposter2.0

cabbageandbacon wrote:

I just drink a pint of milk.

That's a disappointing answer, from someone with that username..

olake92

I'm with cabbageandbacon on this one; a pint of whole milk and a scoop of ZIPVIT WHEY PROTEIN, THE BEST YOU CAN GET!!!!!!!* (22g protein/scoop)

For me, the milk thing is based on a feeling that milk is pretty good for recovery. The extra scoop of protein is just to fulfill my brotein requirements. I think there's enough in the milk regardless.

Whole milk is just the nuts; I've gone through all the phases of milk - skimmed, semi and whole. Now that I understand that I need the fat and calories, I'm good with whole. Probably influenced a bit by the GOMAD diet as well, but a pint is enough for me.

As for smoothies, anything that tastes good and has 20g of protein and a rough 3:1 ratio of carbs:protein would do. Putting in whole milk, full fat yogurt and fruit should get most of that. The rest is just taste.

Not knowing anything about flax seeds, I just googled the recommended portion size, does that help?

*I may be sponsored by Zipvit... on serious note, whey protein is probably the best choice for added protein in a recovery smoothie.

ajkerr73

My mate swears by a punt if milk with a scoop of nesquik plus a couple of scoops of dried milk powder for an extra protein hit.

Cheap as chips!

Dodger747

olake92 wrote:

I'm with cabbageandbacon on this one; a pint of whole milk and a scoop of ZIPVIT WHEY PROTEIN, THE BEST YOU CAN GET!!!!!!!* (22g protein/scoop)

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard @ 24g per scoop!

meanredspider

I recently "discovered" (for me, at least) why the 30-minute window is important. After hard exercise, your insulin levels in your blood are particularly high. By taking on easily-accessed carbs (high GI), the insulin will drive replenishment of your glycogen. Not only that, but you will stave off the crash in blood glucose levels that would otherwise leave you feeling cold (well, it makes me feel cold)

bernithebiker

I have a wacky uncle that is making this recovery drink powder; he's actually quite knowledgable in regards to nutrition and vitamins, etc.

Anyway, it tastes awful; you have to mix it with a big glass of orange juice, but it does have lots of good stuff in it, including a big dose of Vitamin C.

Seems to help!

bahzob

This subject is complicated. For those wanting a detailed insight there is a good Training Peaks video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnCmTTNx_Jo&index=1&list=WL (Its a bit of a sell for a beetroot supplement but that doesn't get into the way of the information content.

That said this is probably a bit OTT for the OP.

For the OP: Training is basically a process where you put your body under stress. This stress causes "damage" to muscle fibre and puts strain on the various physiological systems involved in exercise (like blood supply, heart volume and the like).

When you stop training the body repairs the "damage". In fact it does this so it is better than new, reckoning that if you are daft enough to spend an hour working out then you may do so again and it better be prepared.

Keep repeating this and the body get stronger and stronger, thus able to do harder and harder exercise.

Recovery products help with this in 3 principal ways
- Immediately post a hard workout is actually one of the times eating sugar or other high GI carbs is a good thing. They cause blood sugar to rise quickly. This acts as a signal to the body that you have finished and it can start rebuilding itself.
- If you have worked out for a long time (2 or more hours) or especially hard (an hour or more hard as possible) then the carbohydrates stored as glycogen will be diminished and need topping up. Hi GI carbs help with this too.
- Protein helps as it provides the materials needed to rebuild the damaged muscles. That said most Western diets include enough protein for this, so it's only really needed if you are doing very intense workouts.

Fats in general are not especially useful since they don't help recovery and may slow the absorption of the nutrients you do need.

All this being said recovery products were originally developed for elite full time athletes who stack workouts, doing several per day and/or take part in very demanding multi-day events. If you are only working out for an hour or so and/or not exercising every day then you probably don't actually "need" a recovery product, just a normal diet will be fine.

All the same a recovery product can also serve a useful function as a reward for finishing a session and if you are not trying to lose a lot of weight just eat whatever you enjoy. For me a Snickers bar, bag of crisps and a pint of beer serve this function very well.

bahzob

PS. One minor correction. "Faster" by Michael Hutchinson is a good read and covers the topic of nutrition amongst other things. He's a pretty reliable source and mentions that Omega 3 may help recovery. Since it's a good thing anyways can't do any harm to include this either as supplements or food like seeds and the like, though maybe not until after you have eaten any high GI recovery drinks and given them a bit of time to be digested.

meanredspider

bernithebiker wrote:

you have to mix it with a big glass of orange juice, but it does have lots of good stuff in it, including a big dose of Vitamin C.

Orange juice kicks up your blood glucose very fast. It's a common self-treatment for diabetics with low blood glucose (hypo) - to the extent that we used to consider it as "medical treatment" when reviewing complaint incidents.

diy

Understanding the difference between good fat and bad fat is key. I'm not normally a fan of bodybuilding.com, since its often full of bro science, but this article is reasonable: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson228.htm

Omega-3 for example (a fat) is good at promoting muscle and joint recovery.