You’ve certainly heard all about probiotics by now and how the probiotics in yogurt are a great way to boost your overall health, but you might not think of yogurt as workout fuel. Well, think about it. Adding yogurt to your diet can give you many benefits for your longterm health and for your immediate athletic performance.
Yogurt can be a good post workout snack. Carbs and protein together
work wonders for restoring muscles and replenishing fuel.
So yeah, probiotics. Seems you carry something like 100 trillion (yes, TRillion) microorganisms in your gut. Little bacteria that take up residence in your intestines. Many of these bacteria are “good” because they serve a beneficial function, specifically, helping you with digestion. “Probiotics” is a term referring to nutrition that introduces more good bacteria to the system that will ultimately replace some of the bad bacteria. Various studies indicate that the good bacteria can help reduce chronic inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, and lower your cortisol levels. These effects have multiple benefits including fighting causes of belly fat. In fact, if you want to stay healthy the best thing you can do is take measures to keep your good bacteria as happy as possible! And if you’ve recently been ill it’s a good idea to consume some yogurt to help rebuild your good bacteria population.
Additionally, as a woman involved in intense fight training, you’re constantly taxing your immune system and the probiotics in yogurt can help boost your white blood cell activity, which in turn helps your body fight against viruses and toxins in your system to prevent illness and infection. For females, consuming yogurt regularly could mean boosting your T-cell count by as much as 25%.
And yogurt can be a good post workout snack. Carbs and protein together work wonders for restoring muscles and replenishing fuel. I like mine with a good helping of frozen wild blueberries on top for an extra anti-oxidant boost.
Oh, and that liquid that sets on top of your yogurt - that’s whey. Whey is primarily water, but also contains protein, potassium and calcium. Go ahead and stir it back into the yogurt, it’s good stuff.
If you want to find out more about the science of probiotics you might check out this article.
