My clients have been eating Haribo Gummy Bears after training for YEARS.
What started as a little experiment has now become a post-workout staple, and in this article I’m going to show you why.
I realize it probably sounds strange hearing me recommend eating jellies after the gym, because they’re sweets (and yes, you’ll definitely get some strange looks from other gym-goers!), but trust me, these little pieces of bear-shaped heaven are a perfect fuel source for your aching muscles!
Why Post-Workout Haribo Gummy Bears Are Great
It all revolves around the post-workout recovery phase.
This is the 45-60 minute period after your workout, where the body begins the process of a) repairing the muscle fibres which were damaged in your training session, and b) replenishing your energy stores, which are depleted from training like a fucking beast.
We need two things for this:
- Protein
- Carbohydrates
Most people will cover their protein requirements by grabbing a whey protein shake. This is excellent, because whey is digested very quickly, so it’s great for giving your muscles a quick blast of protein when they need it the most.
However, everyone seems lost with regards to carbohydrates.
This is where Haribo Gummy Bears are introduced.
You see, the main ingredient in Haribo Gummy Bears is dextrose. Dextrose doesn’t need to be broken down by the body before it can be used, so it gets straight to work from the moment you eat it. This will have an instant impact on your energy levels and speed up the recovery process.
Yes you could also get this dextrose by adding a fancy powder to your protein shake, but why would you want to swap jellies for something that tastes like wallpaper paste?
And here’s where things get even more interesting.
Because normally you’d focus on slow-release carbohydrates as they’ll give you a slower release of nutrients and a sustained energy release, but immediately after a workout we want the opposite: fast-release carbs!
These bad boys can hit your muscles in no time.
Lots of people make the mistake of reaching for fruit in this instance. Now I’m not saying fruit is bad for you (it’s really good!), but it’s not optimal for post-workout nutrition because 50% of the sugar found in fruit is from fructose, which must be broken down by the body before it can be used.
So again; even though this handful of jellies probably feels like a treat food, it’s actually helping you smash your fitness goals.
Do We Really Need To Spike Insulin After A Workout?
This is where things get somewhat controversial.
Back in the day, bodybuilding lore said spiking your insulin levels during the post-workout anabolic window (45-60 minutes after training) would lead to a significantly higher uptake of muscle building nutrients and enhance growth.
That’s why you’d often see the big lads at the gym battling their way through huge bowls of pasta after their workouts, and many people believe this is the same reason why athletes consume post-workout Haribo Gummy Bears.
Heck, it’s the same reason why I started doing it.
However, this old theory is not true.
Recent research shows that provided your carbohydrate requirements are met throughout the whole day your muscle glycogen levels will return to full capacity on their own, which means you don’t really need to spike your insulin levels after training to enhance muscle growth. We now also know that a 25g whey protein shake can produce roughly the same insulin spike as a combination of 25g whey protein and 50g carbohydrates, so even if you did need to spike your insulin levels you’d be able to do it with just a whey protein shake! (1, 2, 3, 4)
However, by the time this research was published, post-workout Haribo Gummy Bears were already an established part of my workout regimen, so I kept it in there…. and when I started handing out a handful of jellies to my PT clients after tough sessions I noticed these little bad boys offered a far more important benefit than what I first thought…
So What’s The Benefit?
Simple; this little “trick” is fucking fantastic for helping people hit their nutrition targets.
Check out this email from Kate:
“Russ’ strategy of earning a few jellies as a reward for training hard was a real game-changer for me! It made me work harder in the gym, and it also changed my thoughts about nutrition quite a lot, because I used to worry that eating any kind of sweets would ruin my results but this proved that’s not the case. If anything, it actually helped me to be more consistent outside the gym, too, because they squashed my sweet tooth. I’ve been able to stick to my nutrition targets for a whole year now (the longest ever!) and we had to set new fitness goals because the old ones were done by May!”
– Kate
That says it all, doesn’t it?
Kate is an old PT client of mine. I featured her email here because when we first started working together her relationship with food was damaged from years of silly fad diets, to the point where she couldn’t believe it was possible to eat a handful of jellies after a workout without gaining fat.
She looked at me as if I’d just shit in her protein shaker as I handed her 30 grams of dextrose (that’s 17 bears in Haribo currency – not that I’m obsessed!).
However, it didn’t take long before this little ritual became an integral part of her workouts, and after about two months we both noticed a massive change in her behaviour. You see, not only had Kate blasted beyond those initial fitness targets (as a result of being more consistent and craving less sweet treats outside of the gym), but also her relationship with food had started to change.
This was huge!
She found herself no longer putting foods on bullshit “good” and “bad” lists, and was learning how to enjoy her favourite treats as part of her daily diet – without the usual food guilt that came along for the ride, and without ruining her results! (6)
So that’s how you get great long-term results, and it all started with a handful of post-workout Haribo Gummy Bears!
References:
- Parkin J. A., et al. Muscle glycogen storage following prolonged exercise: effect of timing of ingestion of high glycemic index food. Med Sci Sports Exerc (1997).
- Wojcik J. R., et al. Comparison of carbohydrate and milk-based beverages on muscle damage and glycogen following exercise. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab (2001).
- Nilsson M., et al. Metabolic effects of amino acid mixtures and whey protein in healthy subjects: studies using glucose-equivalent drinks. Am J Clin Nutr (2007).
- Staples A. W., et al. Carbohydrate does not augment exercise-induced protein accretion versus protein alone. Med Sci Sports Exerc (2011).
- Glynn E. L., et al. Muscle protein breakdown has a minor role in the protein anabolic response to essential amino acid and carbohydrate intake following resistance exercise. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol (2010).
- Stewart T. M., et al. Rigid vs. flexible dieting: association with eating disorder symptoms in nonobese women. Appetite (2002).
Been doing this for ages now. Look strange to others at the gym, but it works.
This was an amazing read! Your insights on this topic are very valuable and have given me a lot to think about. I appreciate the time and effort you put into researching and writing this post. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.