That's when your muscles are most receptive to replacing the glycogen. This recovery meal is particularly important if you're doing double-workouts during training or double events such as at a swim meet. If you have no appetite after a hard workout, juice is an excellent recovery food. The fruit sugars will replace the carbohydrates as well as quench your thirst. Your muscles need time to carbo-reload.
Rest is an important part of both the training and recovery program.
You're investing in your future performance. Some excellent potassium-rich choices include oranges or orange juice, bananas, raisins, dried apricots, potatoes, and winter squash. If you crave salt, sprinkle a little on your food or select a salty food such as soup, pretzels, or salted crackers. Although you lose a little bit of salt when you sweat, you are unlikely to totally deplete your body's supply unless you're working extremely hard under extremely hot conditions for an extremely long time. You can easily replace salt losses via ahearty recovery meal.