Eating Fast Food After Working Out May be as Good as Sports Supplements

Eating too much fast food isn't all that good for you. However, scientists have found that a little bit of it after a workout may actually work as well as sports supplements. It turns out that there is no significant difference in glycogen recovery when cyclists ate fast food versus traditional sports supplements.

In this latest study, 11 male cyclists completed two experimental trials in randomized order. Each trial included a 90-minute glycogen-depletion ride followed by a four-hour recovery period. Immediately following each ride and again two hours later, the participants either ate sports supplements or fast food, such as hamburgers, French fries and hash browns. Then follow a four-hour recovery period, the volunteers completed a 12.4-mile time trial.

The scientists then took muscle biopsies and blood samples between the two rides. In the end, they found that there were no differences in blood glucose and insulin responses. In fact, the rates of glycogen recovery from the feedings also were not different between the diets. Most importantly, there were no differences in time-trial performance between the two diets.

"Our results show that eating fast food-in the right amounts-can provide the same potential for muscle glycogen as sports nutrition products that usually cost more," said Brent Ruby, one of the researchers, in a news release.

That said, this doesn't mean that eating fast food is necessarily healthy.

"A lot of the articles out there are totally misrepresenting the study," said Ruby. "We had participants eating small servings of the fast-food products, not giant orders of burgers and fries. Moderation is the key to the results we got."

The findings are published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

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