How to absorb more nutrients (specifically carbs/protein)

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Is it by taking in a lot of fiber?

Like I'll eat 2 eggs, non fat cottage cheese, in a sandwich, which should theoretically power me through a workout, but sometimes it doesn't seem to get absorbed.

So how does it work?

Uh, cottage cheese and eggs has no carbs. Yes, your body needs the cottage cheese and eggs to build muscle after the workout, but during the workout, you need carbs to exert the movements to make the muscle. If you don't got carbs, your body can use fat, but it'll use carbs first. In your case, you've eaten 2 pieces of bread, which'll give you like 100 calories or something. For doing a lot of reps or sets, you're gonna need a lot of carbs. Unfortunately, you're gonna have to use all those carbs during your workout if you want to not get fat. You'd pretty much only switch to a carb restricted diet if you wanna drop weight, then you'll be forcing your body to use it's fat reserves, that's pretty much how Atkins/etc works.

Also, the other thing is, you might wanna wait an hour or so for it to start getting absorbed, or simply just drink sugary stuff. But really, LOTS of carbs are needed for like, heavy compound exercises. I remember I set a clean and jerk PR like 1.5 hours after eating a large Dominos pizza, that workout was sweet.

But to answer your question directly, enzymes help you absorb your food better. So look into digestive enzymes, and eating raw unprocessed foods like fruits, that'll give you carbs with a lot of fiber, but more importantly, digestive enzymes, to allow you to digest them better.

^Yes, raw fruit & vegetables are great, lots of them.

Also, mixing protein & carbs in one meal is said to mess with enzyme activity, making it difficult to digest & metabolise either of those macronutrients in one meal.

I've heard meat tenderizer helps to make food digest and absorb better. I guess you just sprinkle it on everything.

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Chew your food thoroughly. The act of chewing releases the digestive enzyme amylase in your saliva which breaks down carbs. Thorough chewing means that carbs arrive in your stomach already partly digested.

Papaya extract helps a fair bit from in terms of digestive enzymes, which will help you absorb more.

Also, the latest research is showing that food you eat takes anywhere from 3 - 4 hours to hit your bloodstream (4 hrs) or to become available to be used as energy (3 hrs). So with that in mind you may need to time your food accordingly for workouts.