The Surfer’s Plate: Post-Surf Nutrition

In my last blog post, I talked about pre-surf nutrition. Today is all about what to eat and drink after your surf sesh to recovery and feel your best!

First things first, we want to replenish our glycogen stores with healthy carbs. Your body uses carbs as it’s primary source of fuel. Once it’s gone through what we’ve eaten pre-surf, we need to refuel for the rest of the day. Your muscles worked hard to paddle for all of those waves and getting back out to the lineup! Aim for about 30-40g of carbs after surfing (that’s about 1-1.5 cupped handfuls. Look down at your hand, make a cup, and you’ve got your carbohydrate portion control!)

Second, we want to have about 15-20g of protein to help repair our muscles. When we workout or have an intense surf session, we cause micro tears in our muscles and protein helps our muscles repair and grow stronger!

Third, hydrate again! We want to have 20 oz of water with a pinch of pink sea salt or an electrolyte packet. You may not feel like you were sweating but you were. Adding salt to your water will help your body hold on to the water instead of just releasing it through sweat and other bodily functions.

This can be a piece of toast with 1/2 of a banana and 1/2-1 TBS of peanut butter and a side of Greek yogurt, or a homemade açai bowl with 1/2 of a frozen banana as the base, protein powder, and berries on top.