For example, lets say you wake up and eat a decent sized breakfast, then head straight to the gym. You workout for about an hour.
At the end of your workout there's still undigested breakfast in your stomach i would assume you could skip the PWO meal. As long as lunch isnt to far away?
is this wrong?
Don't eat right before you workout. Give your body time to digest. It would also be optimal to not eat a big meal before working out, since you should be eating afterwords and you could feel full during your training.
Post workout carbohydrate serves two main functions.
One is to stimulate insulin, which blunts cortisol while it helps shuttle nutrients into the now-primed and tramuatized muscle-tissue, to promote repair. The other main function is to promote reglycogenation - except that reglycogenation happens over the following hours and days, "spike" or not.
If you've just completely thrashed yourself with high-intensity training - heavy lifting, intense sprinting, complexes - post-workout carbohydrate will support the anti-cortisol function even while fat-burning is taking place. There is peer reviewed literature to this effect.
If you're looking for something post workout, what you want is glucose or a glucose polymer - ie starch. Starches are basically glucose molecules that get together and hold hands. Eat something like white or brown rice, oats, white pasta... your digestive tract will break up the party and release glucose, which requires and stimulates insulin in your body, blunting cortisol, stimulating satiety, shuttling in nutrients and setting the stage for muscle reglycogenation. Since glucose preferentially fills muscle glycogen stores, you want something that either IS glucose or will break down into glucose for this purpose.
