Submitted by Cindy Dallow on Fri, 03/23/2012 - 1:23pm
Your alarm goes off at 5:00 AM (or earlier) and you have 30 mins to gulp down coffee, get your gear ready, and get out the door to swim, bike, or run. The 64 million dollar question is: should you eat and if so, what should you eat?
The quick answer is yes, you should eat something but what (and how much) you eat depends on several things.
First, think about what is going on inside that fine-tuned body of yours. If your last meal was several hours before you went to bed, chances are you have used up all the glycogen in your liver throughout the night (this is one of the ways we maintain blood sugar at night: we break down glycogen from the liver).
If this is the case and you don’t eat anything before attempting a high intensity workout (or a long workout), you will be starting this workout at a slight disadvantage because your liver glycogen is gone. This means you will only have muscle glycogen to supply your muscles with glucose (unless you want to break down muscle for amino acids to be converted to glucose or use the few free fatty acids floating around for energy). This is not good.
If you are only planning on a short, easy workout, you can easily get by with the aforementioned nutrients but if you are planning a longer, more intense workout, then keep reading.
If you decide to ingest a high carb food or beverage before your workout, these carbs will be in the bloodstream within 30 minutes and on their happy way to your fast-moving muscles. This is good.
If you decide to eat or drink something high in fat and/or protein and low in carbs, you’ll have a little energy to play with but not much.
It may help to know a few facts about digestion and “substrate utilization”:
When food is digested, it is broken down into fat, protein, or carbohydrate. These “macronutrients” are metabolized at different rates with carbs being the fastest (especially simple sugars), and protein and fat being the slowest: they can hang out in your stomach for several hours before moving on to the small intestine. While fat and protein help you to feel fuller longer, they’re not a good choice to consume prior to high-intensity exercise or you may end up with severe GI cramps.
Lower intensity exercise uses about 50/50 carbs and fat for energy so if you don’t eat breakfast before doing an easy workout, you probably won’t run out of glycogen because you’re not oxidizing that much carbohydrate for energy. But the total number of calories burned is much less than in high intensity activity so don’t fall for the myth that low intensity exercise is best for “fat-burning” because it is not. The percentage of fat being used for energy is higher in low intensity activity but the total number of calories burned is less than what is burned in high intensity activity.
High intensity activity uses 80 – 100% carbohydrate for energy, most of which comes from stored glycogen. You can use up a good portion of your glycogen with 30 - 60 minutes of high intensity training. This is why its important to eat or drink something high in carbs before an intense workout. You’ll have a lot more energy if you do.
The ideal situation is to eat a high carb breakfast 2 hours prior to a hard workout (or extra long workout) but if that is not possible, get something in your tummy before heading out the door.
What should you eat or drink? Here are a few real-food suggestions for quick high-energy snacks to eat within 30 mins of exercise:
Yogurt and juice (use 100% fruit juice for more nutrition)
Banana and half of a small bagel
Small muffin or lowfat cookie (Fig Newtons or homemade cookies) and juice
Handful of Cheerios and apple juice (for you parents out there!)
Drinkable yogurt and banana
Sports bar and juice or grapes
These also work for pre-race “meals” when you don’t have time to eat a full breakfast. By taking in some carbs before the workout, you will prevent your blood sugar from dropping too low and delay the depletion of your muscle glycogen stores.
Lastly, prepare your food/beverage the night before so that when you wake up, all you have to do is grab and go. Make those early morning workouts worth the effort by giving your body what it needs to do the job right!
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Dialing in your nutrition
Submitted by Cindy Dallow on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 6:10pm
Contact Cindy at cindy@t2coaching.com
One of my clients is training for Ironman Arizona and recently he said "as soon as I get my nutrition dialed in, I'm ready to go".
When I asked him what "dialed in" meant to him, he stuttered and said "well, its where you tell me what to eat, isn't it?"
Well, sort of.
I can tell anyone what to eat - meal by meal - but obviously its better in the long run to acquire the knowledge necessary to make healthy food choices yourself. And essentially, this is what I love to do: help people learn enough about nutrition so that they have the confidence to plan their own meals and snacks for optimal health and performance.
Since March is National Nutrition Month, here are five nutrition tips to jumpstart your training plan.
1. Eat regular meals and snacks. Do NOT skip meals or just munch all day long on whatever is handy. Its too easy to over or undereat this way, which is what most female athletes do, and then they wonder why their race times are not improving. Ideally, you should eat 5 - 6 times a day and focus on nutrient-dense foods (more on that below).
2. Eat a light meal or snack before and after working out. Of course you can workout on an empty stomach - all of us do once in awhile - but chances are your workout will be mediocre in quality. Maximize that precious training time by having plenty of energy on hand to go the distance (for tips on recovery snacks and meals, see http://www.gotribalnow.com/expert/recovery-nutrition-101).
3. Focus on high quality carbs and protein. A Big Mac with fries and a large Pepsi is a high protein/carb meal but no one in their right mind would say this is a high quality meal. That's because the protein comes from low-grade, high fat ground beef and cheese, and the carbs come from white bread and sugar-filled Pepsi. A plateful of brown rice, veggies, lean beef (or tofu), and a glass of low-fat milk is also high in protein and carbs but contains a lot more vitamins, minerals, and fiber than the Mickey D meal.
Remember that each meal should have 2-4 oz of lean protein, 3 - 4 servings of grains and vegetables. Top it off with cold milk (regular or soy) and you've got yourself a turbo-charging good meal.
4. Avoid processed foods - Yes, this is a no-brainer but still worth mentioning. Packaged cookies, crackers, chips, donuts, frozen meals and the like are fine once in awhile but shouldn't be a staple of your daily eating plan.
5. Every meal or snack should have at least one fruit or veggie. This is the one thing most Americans (and many athletes) don't do enough of, which is ironic considering its also the one thing that people mention when asked what makes up a healthy diet. If you want to get serious about health and wellness, then you better get real familiar with the produce department and all it has to offer. Not only will fruits and veggies give you more energy, they're likely to keep you from getting sick by supplying lots of natural vitamin C, A, potassium, and other good stuff to make you a lean, mean, training machine.
Start dialing in your nutrition now and you'll be one step ahead to achieving your training and racing goals.
Contact Cindy at cindy@t2coaching.com
One of my clients is training for Ironman Arizona and recently he said "as soon as I get my nutrition dialed in, I'm ready to go".
When I asked him what "dialed in" meant to him, he stuttered and said "well, its where you tell me what to eat, isn't it?"
Well, sort of.
I can tell anyone what to eat - meal by meal - but obviously its better in the long run to acquire the knowledge necessary to make healthy food choices yourself. And essentially, this is what I love to do: help people learn enough about nutrition so that they have the confidence to plan their own meals and snacks for optimal health and performance.
Since March is National Nutrition Month, here are five nutrition tips to jumpstart your training plan.
1. Eat regular meals and snacks. Do NOT skip meals or just munch all day long on whatever is handy. Its too easy to over or undereat this way, which is what most female athletes do, and then they wonder why their race times are not improving. Ideally, you should eat 5 - 6 times a day and focus on nutrient-dense foods (more on that below).
2. Eat a light meal or snack before and after working out. Of course you can workout on an empty stomach - all of us do once in awhile - but chances are your workout will be mediocre in quality. Maximize that precious training time by having plenty of energy on hand to go the distance (for tips on recovery snacks and meals, see http://www.gotribalnow.com/expert/recovery-nutrition-101).
3. Focus on high quality carbs and protein. A Big Mac with fries and a large Pepsi is a high protein/carb meal but no one in their right mind would say this is a high quality meal. That's because the protein comes from low-grade, high fat ground beef and cheese, and the carbs come from white bread and sugar-filled Pepsi. A plateful of brown rice, veggies, lean beef (or tofu), and a glass of low-fat milk is also high in protein and carbs but contains a lot more vitamins, minerals, and fiber than the Mickey D meal.
Remember that each meal should have 2-4 oz of lean protein, 3 - 4 servings of grains and vegetables. Top it off with cold milk (regular or soy) and you've got yourself a turbo-charging good meal.
4. Avoid processed foods - Yes, this is a no-brainer but still worth mentioning. Packaged cookies, crackers, chips, donuts, frozen meals and the like are fine once in awhile but shouldn't be a staple of your daily eating plan.
5. Every meal or snack should have at least one fruit or veggie. This is the one thing most Americans (and many athletes) don't do enough of, which is ironic considering its also the one thing that people mention when asked what makes up a healthy diet. If you want to get serious about health and wellness, then you better get real familiar with the produce department and all it has to offer. Not only will fruits and veggies give you more energy, they're likely to keep you from getting sick by supplying lots of natural vitamin C, A, potassium, and other good stuff to make you a lean, mean, training machine.
Start dialing in your nutrition now and you'll be one step ahead to achieving your training and racing goals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)