Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
And most pros take a nap after exercise. You can eat perfectly, but if you ride hard there's no way you can keep up with the calories burned. You'll always be deficient. I drink a recovery drink as soon as I come in, then take a nap if I can while my blood sugar comes back up. Then I'll eat more after the nap because the demand for glycogen will have scoured out the carbs from the recovery drink. I can manage without the nap, just keep snacking every 15 minutes, but it's not as pleasant.
Honestly, most people don't burn anywhere near the calories in a given workout that they think they do. This is complicated by the fact that so many devices and Web sites, such as Garmin Connect, Strava, etc. overestimate your calorie burn when you upload your data since actual calorie burn varies from one person to another.
What you need depends on what you're doing. If it's truly a hard workout, then sure, napping plus eating will help. But if you're exercising and eating right, exercise should give you energy, not cause you to crash. In addition to riding regularly, I do strength training that consists of free weights and various other things customized for me. Even after doing that for an hour, when I eat properly, I'm not crashing afterward and honestly that's a much tougher workout than I ever get through cycling because it focuses on so many more areas of the body.
So while it's true that you need to eat to recover, in reality a lot of people eat more than they need to following a ride because they didn't eat and drink properly during the ride. Thus, they got in a deficit and when you do that, you binge.