Nutritional tips to help heal tired muscles, prevent injury, and keep your energy levels up. You strive to enhance physical performance with diet but how do you know what to eat?

According to the principles of Chinese Medicine it is recommended:

• Eat warm cooked foods to nourish tendons and blood.
• Avoid cold uncooked vegetables like salads, carrot sticks, and sushi to help muscles.
• Try to minimize uncooked fruits, juices, and all refined sugar.

These recommendations will make your core energy stronger. You will have more warmth and circulation to the areas you are challenging with exercise. There will be more qi for your lungs to move the air and a greater vitality and endurance for your workout.

To help faciliate dietary changes set out a timeline for training and realistically plan when you will have time to cook for yourself and when you will be purchasing already made foods.

According to Lauren Antonucci there are several things you can do to enhance your training and racing performance:

• Do not skip pre-workout meals
• Drink adequate fluids to replace what is lost to sweat while training, but do not over drink. Athletes can conduct a simple “sweat test” to determine their individual sweat rate and then hydrate accordingly during training and racing.
• Do not miss out on very necessary carbohydrates during workouts and races.
• Be sure to replenish glycogen post workouts.
• And do not try something NEW on a race day.

The optimal Training Diet Composition:
Daily intake should be about 60-65% carbohydrates, 10-15% protein, and 25% fats.
Carbohydrates: bread, cereal, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit, milk, yogurt, energy bars. These ideas provide the brain and muscles with energy they need to work, train and recover.
Protein: poultry, beef, eggs, peanut butter, nuts, beans and soy analogues, and is important for muscle building and recovery.
Fats: olive and canola oil, nuts, avocado and olives as considered “good” fats and fish such as salmon or tuna 2-3 times a week for a great source of Ω 3 fatty acids and protein. Try to limit fats such as butter, lard, coconut oil, mayonnaise and sour cream.

On race day:

• Drink 14-20 oz of fluid, non-caffeinated, 2 hours before the race.
• You can drink caffeinated beverages before the race, but no more than 100-300 mg of caffeine (about a 12 oz coffee), and do not drink caffeine during the race.
• Drink another 4-8 oz 5-10 of non-caffeinated beverages before start of race.
• For a short early morning workout take in 100-150 calories before begin the race.
• For longer training and races divide your body weight in pounds by two and eat that many grams of carbohydrate 1-2 hours before the work out and compliment that with some protein.
• Always keep the pre-event meal low in fiber and fat.

For more information about nutrition for training you can contact Lauren Antonucci, MS, RD, CDE, CDN, Director, Nutrition Energy, (646) 361-6803 www.nutritionenergy.com

Posted October 25th, 2006 by Abbey in articles |