1. What is the proper way to refuel after a workout?

For strength training and cardio, you need to get a certain amount of protein and carbs in your system.

With carbs, you can go usually go pretty high. After a workout, it is one of the few times you can eat what you want because you basically burned a bunch of carbohydrates and glycogen in the body in terms of the muscles. It’s not going to get stored as fat.

Aim for 40 to 50 grams of carbs and six to 20 grams of protein. The point of refueling is that it is all going into your muscles or liver and it helps build muscles and repairing what you just did to your body.

It is important to eat within 45 minutes to an hour after working out. If you drink a 20- ounce Gatorade and have a protein bar, you will be fine.

You want fast-acting carbs. This is the one time you can eat white bread and it would be okay. If you eat a slice of white bread and peanut butter, you just knocked it out. Or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You get carbs from the jelly and the bread.

Chocolate milk is a great drink for refueling. It has a good amount of protein and carbs, tastes great and is also convenient and pretty cheap.

2. Will girls really “bulk” up?

Girls have a lot more estrogen and guys have a lot more testosterone, that is why we put on muscle more easily. Guys’ testosterone [levels] range is about 200 (ng/dL) to 1200 (ng/dL) and girls’ [levels] are like 20 (ng/dL) to 40 (ng/dL).

Girls get so worried about bulking up, but you can not naturally put on muscle like guys can.

Also, muscle really does not weigh more than fat. A pound is a pound. But a pound of muscle takes up a lot less room than a pound of fat.

3. What is the ideal amount of time to strength train?

Three to five times a week. For example, you could do Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

When you strength train you boost your metabolism for the next 24 to 48 hours. If you exercise on Monday and then you rest on Tuesday, your metabolism goes down and then shoots right back up when you work out on Wednesday, so that entire week your metabolism is revved.

4. Do you have to work out five to six days a week?

You could do five to six days a week if you really wanted, but you would need to talk to someone and figure out exactly what you should be doing.

If you are strength training every day, then you better be doing a different body part every day. But you still need a rest day.

You can do recovery days where you are still doing stuff and being active, but you are letting your body recover.

5. Is it really important to take one to two rest days per week?

You want to take rest days because you can over train and totally reverse what you are trying to do.

For example, say you focused on legs Monday and wanted to work out on Tuesday: you should just do an upper body workout.

I suggest, for most girls, to do a full body workout because you will burn more calories and it is less boring.

If you are going to do cardio, I think it is best to do intervals. Run for 30 seconds as hard as you can and walk for two minutes. It only takes 20 minutes.

If you are going for an hour, you want to be at a moderate pace where you can talk because you are going to burn more fat that way. The longer you go the more fat you burn because you are going at a lesser intensity. The harder you go the more carbs you burn.

6. Do you consider yoga or pilates strength training?

In yoga you get a lot of static poses to hold, so your muscles are contracted.

I think yoga and pilates are great. Any guys who say they are more “pansy” workouts needs to know that the NFL has their players doing it all the time.

It’s good stuff. It opens you up, you are more loose and for an hour you get to take your mind off of things which is great for people with stress.

It’s hard to manipulate your own body weight. If you don’t think it is, sit down and do a lunge for about 20 seconds.

7. What is your ideal day of eating?

Ideally, I would do six mini-meals but it is hard to do. If you can only get three meals then make them three good meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Just watch what you eat. A lot of people make eating a lot more complicated than it really is. They know what they are supposed to eat but a lot of times we eat emotionally or because we are bored.

If you make out what will eat for the day or week, it will help so much instead of just going out and quickly grabbing something.

For students eating on campus, you should try to find healthy options and if you can eat six meals, I say do it. That means basically three meals and three snacks.

If you eat breakfast at 8 a.m., and do not eat eat lunch again until 12:30 p.m., that is a four and a half hour gap. Around 10 a.m. grab a yogurt for protein.

Most guy trainers are going to tell you to eat protein. The reason we say that is because protein is the hardest thing for your body to break down so you will feel fuller.

Between lunch and dinner, you could have string cheese and almonds. You are getting good fats from the almonds and protein from the cheese.

8. How important is sleeping to losing or maintaining weight?

Very important. Get seven to eight hours. If you are not getting enough sleep, your body will not release the hormone that tells you when you are full.

More importantly, sleep is when your body is repairing itself and you are building muscle.

When I am in the gym, I am not actually building muscle while I am there, it is later on.

9. Is the “skinny tip” go to bed hungry true?

I would say wake up hungry. You always hear don’t eat carbs at night and I am kind of a big believer in that myself. I try not to eat a lot of carbs after 4 p.m.

I say if you can wake up hungry, you are doing good because you will eat immediately.

Most people do not eat breakfast and that is so bad. If you get eight hours of sleep, do you go eight hours during the day without eating? No.

10. Do you recommend working out on an empty stomach?

This is so controversial, but I do.

If you wake up and immediately work out, your insulin levels are low so your body is going to pull from fat instead of carbs. It will use more fat for fuel.

But everyone is different and will tell you different things. If I could work out first thing in the morning I would.

11. And it gets your day started on the right foot…

Our most popular time to train people is at 6 a.m.

By 7 a.m. they can go home and eat, shower and they feel like they have already accomplished something that day.

To contact Osteen for more information or questions inquiry about personal training contact him at: [email protected]