Athlete Nutrition

As an athlete nutrition is an important part of helping you perform to your potential. Firstly you will need to maintain an optimal steady weight for your sport, secondly you will want to maintain your health, thirdly you will want to fuel your sporting endeavours as you train and compete and finally you will want to adapt to training quickly so that you improve your standard.

1) Reaching and maintaining an optimal weight is vital if you want to perform to your best ability. It is not simply a matter of counting calories. In fact I actively encourage my clients to avoid counting calories at is normally a waste of time. It is far more effective to change your diet round to include the types of foods that don't lead to weight gain such as fruits, vegetables nut and beans. These types of food effect the appetite and metabolism in such as way as to minimise weight gain. in contrast carbohydrates that release sugar into the bloodstream quickly and saturated fats will have the opposite effect.

The main hormone associated with weight gain is insulin. This is the hormone that stores fuel up for leaner times. A useful attribute for a caveman who didn't know when or where his next meal was coming from. It stores fat as triglycerides in fat cells, carbohydrates as glycogen in the liver and uses protein in the diet to build proteins for use in the human body. 

Eating foods such as nuts, which don't raise levels of insulin in the blood are unlikely to lead to weight gain whereas foods which lead to surges of insulin such as waffles and other high glycaemic load foods will almost inevitably pile on the pounds unless you exercise regularly enough to burn off the excess energy.

 2) Maintining health is key to successful sporting performance. It means that you can be clear of any illness or injury when you compete, but also in full health to allow you to string together consistent periods of training over long periods of time. To do this you need a strong immune system. This is best achieved by ensuring that you make a full recovery from training and competition, by keeping the mind relatively unstressed and by consuming the right kinds of nutrients in your diet. The most effective nutrients to include in your diet to boost your immune system are the antioxidant vitamins, certain minerals, polyunsaturated oils and probiotic and prebiotic foods

If deficient in any of the vitamins as well as selenium and zinc your immune system will suffer. A diet high in fruits (berries are particularly effective) and vegetables is fundamental to good health. Including the right polyunsaturated oils along with monounsaturated oils also strengthens the immune system. Omega 3 oils found in oily fish and some seeds, especially linseeds are effective as are the monounsaturated oils found in virgin olive oils which lie at the heart of the ultra healthy meditteranean diet.

Probiotic foods such as bio-active yoghurts contain live bacteria that inhabit the intestines and help prevent bad bacteria taking hold there. Prebiotic foods such as leeks, jerusalem artichokes and asparagus feed the good bacteria that come from the probiotic products helping them to flourish. By consuming a diet containing both you will reduce your chances of suffering illness.

3) Providing energy for your sport is vital. This can be done using proprietary products such as gels, bars and mixed powder drinks from sports nutrition companies such as High5, Powerbar, Maxim, Maximuscle, Taut, SIS, Infinit, Torq and many others or by producing your own home made versions. Either way what you require are three things. a) a source of fuel in the form of sugars that can be easily absorbed and utilised to enable your muscles to function; b) a source of water in order to maintain your hydration levels in an optimum range and c) a source of salts to ensure that your body's water balance is maintained and that the levels of salts in the body stay within operating ranges.

Many of the commercial drink powders are based on maltodextrin which breaks down into pure glucose. However there is some evidence that including fructose in the mix as well as glucose can help speed up energy provision to the muscles. If you choose to concoct your own drinks you will probably include fructose naturally as it is found in most fruits.

Salt levels in sports products can vary wildly as can your needs. For instance the SIS product PSP22 contains no salt while the Powerbar drink pictured above contains about 1% salt. If it is hot and you sweat alot then it will be important to replace salts and especially sodium and this can be done by a) using a salty commercial drink; b) using an unsalted commercial drink with added salt tablets or c) making your won and adding between 0.2-1.2% salt to the solution.

4) Adapting to training and recovering from training and competition is best achieved by ensuring that you rehydrate and refuel yourself within 10-60 minutes after completion of training or competition. This is the time when the body is most likely to store nutrients in the best places for optimal recovery. For example. it will store any carbohydrates that you eat mostly as muscle glycogen ensuring that your fuel reserves are maxmised for your next session. Later on there is a tendency for the excess sugars from the carbohydrate intake to be stored as fat.

Although there are many commercial products aimed at post exercise recovery it is probably best to use them when no other palatable forms of nutrition are available. This is because they are not natural foods and often contain unneccessary additives. It is best to eat natural whole foods if you can at these times. Either way the key point is to include sources of protein and carbohydrate in your post exercise meal. The protein will be needed to help in the recovery of damamged muscle fibres and other parts of the body that are involved with intense exercise and as discussed earlier the carbohydrate will top up your muscle glycogen stores.

If training or competition has been particularly arduous then it is of increasing importance to top up levels of micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals. Some people choose to do this with supplements but for most people it should be sufficient to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables with a post race meal and to continue eating foods high in micronutrients for the next 24 hours.