Most post-workout foods aren’t keto-friendly. They have too much sugar, too little protein, too many additives, or all of the above.
What you really need are post-workout foods that don’t just support your keto lifestyle. They enhance your fitness performance and recovery.
You don’t need carbs to make this happen. Muscle protein synthesis, or workout recovery, works better without carbs. Instead, you need keto-friendly sources with plenty of protein and fat. Let’s get into our favorite post-workout foods that support both ketosis and your workout goals.
1. Whey Protein
Whey protein is a great source of leucine, an amino acid necessary for muscle growth. It’s also a complete protein. That means it contains all 9 essential amino acids, including muscle-building branched-chain amino acids.
Compared to other protein powders, whey is better for digestion and a more efficient source of protein than casein, hemp, pea, or soy proteins. (1) It also stands above the rest when it comes to post-workout recovery.
In one study, researchers gave 12 athletes whey or carbs and then had them lift weights. At both 12 and 24 hours post-workout, the whey-supplemented group had better markers of muscle recovery, strength, and power. (2)
Another study, this time on older women, found that whey supplementation helped women maintain more muscle mass than the placebo group after 12 weeks of strength training. (3) This is a promising victory in the fight against age-related muscle decline.
Whey also pairs nicely with keto-induced weight loss and improved body composition. Research shows that adding whey to a ketogenic diet preserves muscle and helps you lose fat more effectively vs. more restrictive diets. (4)
Whey protein isolate — preferably the grass-fed variety — is easy to add to your keto lifestyle, especially if you already like protein shakes. Just scoop 20-30 grams of our Keto Whey Protein into your post-workout keto shake and blend away.
2. Meat and Fish
High-quality grass-fed, pastured meat and wild-caught fish are excellent sources of fat and protein. Like whey, these are complete proteins with leucine, an essential amino acid. Because of this, both make a great post-workout keto meal.
Meat and fish are also super keto-friendly meals, especially fattier choices like wild-caught salmon or a nice grass-fed rib eye. For reference, the classic keto diet is about 60% fat, 30% protein, and 10% carbs by calories.
Salmon fillets are one of our favorite keto post-workout meals. They’re high-fat, protein-rich, and full of omega-3 fats like EPA and DHA. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory healthy fats that have been shown to minimize post-workout soreness and boost your heart health. (5)
Finally, meat and fish proteins tend to be hypoallergenic. Some people can’t eat dairy, which rules out casein and (sometimes) whey. Others have trouble with soy or eggs. That leaves meat and fish as potential post-workout protein sources that are less likely to cause you issues.
3. Collagen Powder
When you work out, you don’t just break down muscle. You also break down connective tissue. Connective tissue holds your bones together, determines your force output, and influences your range of motion. (6)
Collagen gives your connective tissues structural support. That’s why collagen synthesis is so important to post-workout recovery.
The best way to boost collagen synthesis is to consume collagen powder. (7) Collagen powder contains high amounts of the amino acids glycine and proline, essential to collagen production.
Collagen is also keto-friendly. It won’t add to your carb count and helps keep your blood sugar low, keeping your body in ketogenic, fat-burning mode. (8) Try our Grass-Fed Collagen Peptides & MCT Brain Boost to get you started.
4. Eggs
The egg is nature’s ketogenic miracle: high fat, moderate protein, and very low carb. It’s the only protein that rivals whey for efficiency, bioavailability, and digestibility, making it a great choice to support your body post-workout.
Egg yolks are also high in choline, a nutrient that powers mitochondria in muscle cells. (9) Mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells, so this is great news for strength and recovery. No choline, no power.
Like salmon, pasture-raised and organic eggs contain anti-inflammatory omega-3s, which are good for minimizing soreness after a workout. Unless you’re sensitive or allergic to eggs, they’re a great option to add to your arsenal to support exercise on keto.
5. Keto-Friendly Protein Bars
It’s hard to find a keto-friendly protein bar. Most of them have way too many carbs. Even worse, those carbs often come from straight-up sugar on top of artificial flavors and colors.
Too many carbs spike your blood glucose, raise your insulin levels, and slam the door on ketosis. With high insulin levels, you can’t enjoy the benefits of ketosis. Sticking to keto helps you lose weight, burn body fat, and preserve muscle.
One option that won’t mess with ketosis is our Collagen Protein Bars. With 12 grams of protein, 18 grams of fat, and 2 grams of sugar, they’re a fantastic and delicious option for keto gym-goers.
6. Exogenous Ketones
When you eat a ketogenic diet, your body starts producing the ketone body beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), which lowers your blood sugar and preserves muscle. (10)
Diet alone isn’t the only way to increase your blood ketone levels, though. You can also consume ketones directly. These edible ketones, or exogenous ketones, come in two forms: ketone salts and ketone esters. Ketone esters are more potent, but they don’t last as long as ketone salts. (11)
Exogenous ketones, like our Base Ketones, enhance exercise performance. In one study, a group of cyclists given a ketone drink showed increased fat burning, improved glycogen conservation, and better muscle endurance than athletes given other options. (12)
These ketones also help move blood sugar out of your blood and into lean body mass. In other words, you enhance athletic performance and lower your blood sugar simultaneously, reducing your risk of obesity and chronic disease along the way. (13)
7. MCT Oil
Medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil is a type of fat derived from coconut oil. Adding some to drinks or meals, even just a few grams, can get you into ketosis pretty quickly.
That’s because MCT oil heads straight to your liver for ketone conversion. It’s like your keto shortcut, an easy hack to raise blood BHB levels. (14)
Higher BHB levels synergize with leucine to preserve and repair muscle tissue. Getting ketones and leucine together is simple. Just add MCT oil — or our MCT Oil Powder — to your post-workout protein shake.
8. Greens
Your macronutrient requirements on keto are simple enough: fat, protein, and carbs.
Micronutrients, however, are more complex. You need dozens of nutrients for everything from brain health to respiration to workout recovery. To get those micronutrients, you need to eat your vegetables, especially your greens.
Dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, and Swiss chard are excellent for post-workout recovery. They’re rich in antioxidants, vitamins A, C, and K, and minerals like magnesium and potassium, which aid muscle repair and reduce inflammation.
If you’re still short after adding more to your diet, supplements like our Daily Electrolytes can give you the boost you need. Electrolytes are essential to post-workout recovery, especially after a high-intensity session.
9. Avocados
One cup of avocado contains 22 grams of fat, 4 grams of protein, and 13 grams of carbohydrates. That carb total is offset by the 10 grams of fiber in medium-sized avocados, reducing your net carbs to just 3 grams. On top of being keto-friendly, avocados are strong in the micronutrient department, too.
All of that means healthier keto, especially if you’re introducing more intense workouts, bodybuilding sessions, or intermittent fasting and need an extra energy source.
We love their texture, too. Avocados turn smoothies from a runny mess to thick, velvety pudding. Yum.
10. Nuts
Adding more fat to your diet without chugging olive oil is easy. Eat nuts.
Almonds, macadamia nuts, cashews, walnuts, and pistachios are all high-fat, low-carb, keto-friendly snacks. They’re also good sources of micronutrients.
A quarter cup of walnuts contains 53% of your daily copper, 44% of your daily manganese, and 20% of your molybdenum. Copper is important to collagen synthesis and essential to any good workout recovery. (15)
Nuts should be a mainstay in your snack routine as you get keto-adapted. Nothing’s easier to bring to the gym, office, or movie theater. If you want to mix it up, consider nut butter.
Pre and Post-Workout Recipes
Sometimes, you need something a little more substantial than keto-friendly snacks. Here are some of our favorite pre- and post-workout recipes that go beyond low-carb pre-workout snacks and post-workout bites to keep energy high and ketosis in check.
Keep in mind that it is always less about when you eat and more about what you eat, especially when it comes to protein. (Protein-rich options are the best foods to have before and after a cardio workout!)
Pre-Workout
Post-Workout
- Post-Workout Repair Mocha
- Keto Chicken Nuggets
- Chocolate Almond Smoothie Bowl
- No-Bake Nut Butter Low-Carb Protein Balls
- Keto BLT Sandwich
Keto-Friendly Workout Tips
Keto already supports better workouts and more sustained energy levels. Our tips below get into some specifics on how you can make sure that you’re staying in ketosis and building strength and endurance for better post-workout recovery.
Meet Your Macros
Meeting your macros on a keto diet is vital for effective post-workout recovery. After exercise, your body needs adequate protein to repair and rebuild muscle fibers. Dietary fats replenish depleted stores and sustain energy for future workouts.
As far as carbs, you don’t need them to build muscle. In fact, eating too many will impede your keto goals. With that in mind, try this strategy. Calculate your daily carb intake. If that number is over 10-15% of your total caloric intake, you may be out of the keto zone.
Balancing macros ensures you remain in ketosis while providing the nutrients you need for muscle recovery, reducing soreness, and preventing fatigue. Lacking in an area or prioritizing one over the other can slow recovery, hinder progress, and undermine your fitness and keto goals.
Not sure you’re getting your keto ratio right? Our free Keto Calculator is an easy way to help you identify the fats, carbs, and proteins you need to meet your goals.
Get Enough Protein
Your muscle tissue needs protein to recover and come back stronger after any kind of exercise. Specifically, you need leucine, the amino acid we’ve mentioned already.
When you eat adequate leucine-containing foods, you’ll maintain a positive net protein balance, helping your muscles grow back stronger. This is essential if you do any resistance or strength training. Both can cause microscopic tears in your muscle tissue or muscle breakdown.
If you don’t eat enough leucine, the muscle stays broken down.
So, how much leucine-rich protein should you eat? (16) That depends on how much you exercise:
- Heavy exercise: 1.6 g/protein per kg body weight
- Moderate exercise: 1.3 g/protein per kg body weight
- Not much exercise: 1 g/protein per kg body weight
Up to 2 g protein/kg body weight a day, or about 160 grams of protein for a 180-pound person, is considered safe.
On a ketogenic diet, moderate- to high-protein intake is generally fine. Although most keto dieters keep their protein intake to around 30% of their calories, those on a high-intensity exercise program may benefit from the extra boost.
Understand Nutrient Timing
When it comes to exercise, nutrient timing is the strategic consumption of nutrients like protein, fats, and carbs to optimize performance and recovery. It’s about what you can eat to both fuel your workouts and enhance muscle repair and energy after you’re done.
It can also be used to maintain ketosis. Nutrient timing in ketosis focuses on consuming proteins and fats strategically to optimize energy without disrupting the process.
If you follow a targeted ketogenic diet (TKD), you may eat a small number of fast-absorbing carbs before, during, or after your workouts to help you fuel your sessions. (You won’t burn through your glycogen stores if you’re not doing hardcore exercises like Crossfit, though.)
We find that it’s always more about what you eat than when you eat it. You will always need protein to build muscle, but it doesn’t matter if you eat that protein before or after the workout. The result will be similar. (17)
Strike a Balance
On keto, combining smart snacking with balanced exercise is key to keeping energy up and staying within your macros. Overexercising can deplete glycogen stores and trigger cravings, increasing your risk of exceeding carb limits over the course of the day.
Mindless snacking can also disrupt ketosis and hinder recovery. That’s why we’re all about nutrient-dense snacks that won’t knock you out of keto or affect your workouts.
If you’re already feeling fatigued before a planned workout, opt for a fat-rich option like a handful of nuts or MCT oil for sustained energy. Post-workout, prioritize high-quality proteins paired with healthy fats for muscle repair.
It’s always most important to listen to your body. If you’re not getting the results you want to see despite your best efforts at the gym and in the kitchen, you may be hitting it too hard. Your body needs rest to perform at its best, too.
Take Care of Your Mental Health
Supporting your mental health is vital for success on keto. It’s essential to post-workout recovery, too. Stress and bad sleep can elevate cortisol levels, which disrupts ketosis and makes it harder for your muscles to recover. (18) It can also increase sugar cravings.
Adequate rest and stress management are essential to muscle repair, healthy glycogen levels, and the prevention of burnout from overtraining. Solid mental health supports consistency in your diet and exercise routine, helping you stay focused on your goals.
Incorporating stress-reducing activities like mindfulness, meditation, or yoga complements the restorative benefits of keto.
The Bottom Line
At Perfect Keto, we know the keto diet is all about making choices throughout your day. When it comes to how you feel before and after a workout, those choices become even more important.
Picture this. You finish your workout, feel famished, and walk to your gym’s food counter.
The options for post-workout snacks are bleak. The protein bars are more like candy bars. Maybe they’re even trying to sell you on the best carbs post-workout, something you know you don’t need to stay on keto.
Try to wait until you get home, where all of your favorite keto-friendly ingredients are waiting.
Mix whey protein, MCT oil powder, collagen, avocado, and nut butter for the perfect post-workout fuel. It’s a high-fat, high-protein keto bomb designed to enhance your recovery that hits the spot, too.
FAQ
Is it easy to build muscle on the keto diet?
Building muscle on any diet requires patience and persistence, but keto gives your body its best chance at healthy, sustainable muscle growth.
When you eat a low-carb, high-fat meal plan, your body stops using glucose and starts using ketones. This sends a message to your body that it’s time to spur on fat loss and preserve muscle.
As long as you have fatty acids and ketones in your bloodstream, your muscles will stay strong. Get adequate protein, and they’ll get even stronger.
Can you eat more on keto if you exercise?
You can eat more on keto if you exercise, but you still want to snack wisely. Focus on nutrient-dense, keto-friendly foods to meet protein and fat needs while staying within carb limits. Adjust your intake based on your workouts but without disrupting ketosis or overindulging.
How can I replenish glycogen stores after a workout while staying in ketosis?
To replenish glycogen stores on keto, consume protein as part of your post-workout nutrition. Some amino acids convert to glucose through gluconeogenesis, aiding muscle glycogen recovery. (19)
Keto is also low-carb, not zero-carb. You can include small amounts of low-carb fruits or veggies without disrupting ketosis, especially if you’re on a TKD. Prioritize healthy fats to sustain energy while maintaining a state of ketosis post-workout.