This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Sports Nutrition Tips

Without a doubt, what you eat and when you eat affects your athletic performance. A wisely selected sports diet can help you be stronger, train harder, and compete better.

Sports Nutrition                                                                 Common Sense Fitness

Nancy Clark MS, RD, CSSD                                                 Personal Training

www.nancyclarkrd.com                                                       Stephen Stern BS, CPT

Find out what's happening in North Havenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

                                                                                        www.comsenfit.com

 

Find out what's happening in North Havenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Without a doubt, what you eat and when you eat affects your athletic performance. A wisely selected sports diet can help you be stronger, train harder, and compete better. Use the following sports nutrition tips to help you eat to optimize your performance.

Fuel: The best foods to fuel your muscles are carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables and grains. Each meal and snack should include naturally occuring sugars in fruits and juices, or grain-based foods such as pasta, bread, rice, cereal, oatmeal, and corn. These carbohydrates provide not only energy but also important vitamins and minerals. Refined sugars (as in soft drinks, sports drinks, gels, and candy) also fuel muscles-but are nutrient poor choices and lack the vitamins that help your body's engine run best.

        Your muscles store only carbohydrates-not protein or fat-in a form of sugar called glycogen. During hard exercise, your muscles burn this glycogen for energy. When you deplete your glycogen stores, as can happen during repeated days of hard training and a low carbohydrate diet, you feel overwhelmingly exhausted. Eating high carbohydrate foods (cereal, pancakes, bagels, bread, fruit, vegetables, pasta, potato, juice) on a daily basis can help you train harder and compete better.

       Altough protein is a poor source of fuel, a small serving of a protein-rich food at two meals per day (plus the protein in two or three cups of milk or yogurt) is important to build and repair muscles. The protein should be the accompaniment to the carb-based meal, not the main focus.

Quick Energy: if you are hungry, tired, and craving a quick energy boost prior to exercise, you don't have to eat sugar for energy. A simple snack of crackers, fruit, or a low fat granola bar can perk you up. Better yet, prevent the need for an energy boost! Simply eat a heartier breakfast and lunch that fuels you earlier in the day so you won't be running on fumes later that afternoon. These meals will be digested in plenty of time for your afternoon or evening workout. You will feel ready for action, not tired, hungry.

       For some people, eating lots of sugary foods for quick energy 15 to 45 minutes before exercise can hurt their performance. The sugar causes the body to secrete insulin which, when combined with exercise, can cause blood sugar to drop. If  you are sensitive to blood sugar changes, you may feel light-headed, unccordinated, shaky, and tired. This is needless-and preventable.

Pre-Exercise Meals: Many athletes incorrectly believe they should exercise on an empty stomach, but research suggests pre-exercise food actually improves performance. Because athletes vary in their ability to tolerate pre-exercise food, you need to experiment during training to learn how much and what kinds of food work best for your body. Part of your training is to train your intestinal tract to tolerate pre-exercise fuel. Some popular choices include oatmeal, cereal with lowfat milk, bananas, canned peaches, energy bars, bagels, pasta. Avoid large, hard-to-digest, fatty meals (burgers, fried foods).

       The day before an event (and every day, for that matter, because you can only compete at your best if you train at your best), you should eat carb-rich meals to fuel your muscles. For example, eating pasta for a pre-game dinner allows adequate time for your body to digest and store the carbs as glycogen in your muscles.

       One to three hours before a strenuous morning event (such as a 9:00 a.m. soccer game), plan to eat a light breakfast (cereal, bagel) or comfortable snack (energy bar, banana). This food helps maintain a normal blood sugar level and enhances your endurance. Before an afternoon competition, eat a hearty breakfast and a comfortble lunch (soup, sandwich); before an evening event, add a snack and/or dinner as tolerated.

Fluids: Just as lack of carbohydrates can hurt athletic performance, so can lack of fluids. To prevent yourself from becoming dehydrated, drink fluids before, during, and after strenuous exercise. To tell if you've had adequate fluids, monitor your urine. It should be pale yellow (like lemonade), not dark (like beer). You should need to urinate every two to four hours.

       Which is better: water or a sports drink? Water is fine for exercise that lasts less than an hour, particularly if you have enjoyed a pre-exercise snack to fuel your workout. If you are exercising for more than an hour, a sports drink during exercise offers energizing carbohydrates and can enhance your stamina and endurance. After exercise your body needs water+carbohydrates. While sports drinks are popular, lowfat (chocolate) milk, flaored yogurt, a fruit smoothie, or juice offers more nutritional value. Athletes with significant sweat losses can replace sodium losses with salty foods, such as soup, pretzels, pizza, or salt sprinkled on any food.

Recovery Foods: You should eat or drink carbohydrates (fruit, juice) as soon as tolerable (within an hour) after hard exercise to replace depleted glycogen stores. Muscles are most receptive to refueling at this time. For athletes who do exhaustive exercise, consuming a little protein along with the carbs (as in fruit yogurt or chocolate milk) can enhance the speed of recovery and may reduce soreness.

       Remember: Only carbohydrates can quickly refuel your muscles and prepare you for tomorrow's workout. Hence, your recovery meal should not be a greasy burger with french fries. Instead, choose carbohydrate-rich thick crust pizza with veggie toppongs, pasta with meatballs, or a grilled chicken dinner that emphasizes potato, pasta, bread, vegetables, juices, and other carbs.

Copyright:Nancy Clark, MS, RD, CSSD

Healthworks, Chestnut Hill,Ma. 02467 . nancyclarkrd.com

Reprint permission granted with proper credit.

 

A personal trainer, with a sports nutrition background can help you incorporate healthy eating into your overall fitness plan.

Stephen Stern BS, CPT

Common Sense Personal Training

605 Washington Avenue, North Haven, Ct. 06473

203-530-1811

stepstern@comcast.net

www.comsenfit.com

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?