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. Keep eating carbohydrate-rich foods for at least two days after exhaustive endurance exercise to adequately replace depleted glycogen stores. 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 a hearty recovery meal.