Virgin Active Health Club - Healthy Eating


High-energy food for high-energy performance
	Can eating make you stronger, faster and better? Let’s find out. We’re all too familiar with diet tips to change the way our bodies look, but with the Flora London Marathon 2008 fast approaching, let’s see how diet can change the way your body performs. You don’t have to be a top athlete to take interest. If you’re involved in sports at any level, or take part in regular physical activities, or exercise, you should be conscious that what you put into your body affects what you get out of it. It’s not about how much you eat - although your calorie count should go up the more exercise you do - but eating the right balance of foods. Experts recommend a ratio of approximately 20% protein, 30% fat, and 50% carbohydrates for long-distance runners and endurance athletes.
That makes a pretty big departure from popular low-carb diets such as the Atkins and South Beach diets, but eating for energy means stocking up on your body’s favourite fuel source: Carbohydrates. Eat a carbo-load! That doesn’t mean you have to subsist solely on bread and pasta – although that is a popular misconception. In fact, fruit and vegetables, grains, lentils, legumes, potatoes, fruit juices and smoothies are all high in carbohydrates. And your best bet for peak performance is to eat nutrients from as wide a variety of food as possible to prepare for the big day. Carbohydrates are easy to digest and convert into fuel, which makes them your muscles’ primary source of energy to work faster, harder and more efficiently. No other macronutrient provides such readily available, “instant” energy, and although your body can utilise fat as a fuel source, it’s only during low-intensity exercise – so not applicable for your average Paula Radcliffe! At race pace, elite athletes rely on carbohydrates for fuel as it yields energy much faster than anything else. Without delving into the science too deeply, proteins and fats involve a more complicated metabolic process to make them available for energy – as do amino acids and fatty acids. However, since 50% of those participating in the London marathon will finish the race in over four hours, they will rely substantially on energy from fat, too. This is because they’re running at a lower intensity and their bodies can’t store energy as efficiently. But to understand this, you need to understand a little bit about how your body stores carbohydrates. Burn, baby, burn… Carbohydrates are stored in our bodies in the form of glucose in the bloodstream, and glycogen in the skeletal muscles and liver. Our bodies use a combination of the two to fuel performance, but it’s widely accepted that our ability to perform in endurance sports (i.e. marathon running) draws largely on “pre-exercise” stores of glycogen. That’s why many runners follow a high-carb eating plan throughout their training regimes, and start “carbo-loading” in the final weeks approaching the marathon. The principle behind this is eating to fill your energy needs later - although some evidence indicates this may actually have an adverse effect. Under normal circumstances, humans are capable of storing approximately 80-100g of glycogen in the liver and 300-400g in the skeletal muscles. However, during an endurance event like the marathon where you burn approximately 100 calories per mile (or 25g CHO), this energy is quickly burned up. Once your glycogen stores are exhausted, and not replaced by carbohydrates, your performance slows down; you become tired, lose concentration, and eventually succumb to exhaustion. This is widely referred to by runners as “hitting the wall”. At this point, it is dangerous to continue running without taking in more carbohydrates as the body starts to use protein as a fuel source, which involves breaking down muscle. Not a good place to be, particularly around mile 20… To avoid this, marathon runners generally tuck into a carb-loaded meal the night before, and a high-carb breakfast the morning of the event, and many take carb gels and isotonic sports drinks throughout the race to continually replenish glycogen levels and keep the blood glucose levels from dropping. As a guide, you should aim for a carbohydrate intake of 30-60g per hour; and 400-600ml of fluids per hour, depending on body size, pace, weather conditions and most importantly, what you feel comfortable with. Getting the right amount Work out your recommended daily carb intake, depending on how much you work out. 1. Select the exercise category which best describes your exercise intensity. a) Acute = Highly active athletes who participate in “acute events” that require maximum glycogen storage, post-exercise recovery, or carbo-loading before an event. Recommended carbohydrate intake: 7-10 g per kg of body weight per day. (This may increase up to 12 or more grams of carbohydrate per kg body weight per day if the athlete is taking part in extreme exercise, e.g. four to five hours of moderate or high intensity exercise daily, such as cyclists participating in the Tour de France or athletes running marathons.) b) Moderate = Athletes participating in low intensity exercise of less than one hour a day. Recommended to have 5-7 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight per day. (Anyone participating in moderate intensity exercise, including non-athletes who train hard at the gym every second day, or participate in moderately strenuous recreational sport, athletes who take part in events lasting about one hour and with relatively long breaks in between, and athletes such as body builders, who expend exercise in a sustained way.) 2. Multiply your daily carbohydrate requirement by your weight in kilogram: For example, if you weigh 70 kg: 70 x (7-10) = 490 to 700 g of carbohydrate per day. If this all seems a bit too confusing, skip the mathematical approach and just follow a balanced eating plan packed with plenty of high-energy carbohydrates including colourful vegetables, seeds, nuts and grains. To ensure your body is receiving all of the nutrients and minerals it requires for performance and repair, add to that, a healthy intake of calcium-rich dairy foods to make your bones stronger, and protein-rich foods like seafood, meat and poultry, which also contain a great source of iron and zinc to keep your immune up and running for as long as you are! Good carb choices Use the following as a guide to good carbohydrate choices: Breads and breakfast cereals: Granola, porridges, muesli, breads, crackers, bagels. Grains, legumes, potatoes: Baked beans, lentils, potatoes, rice, all types of pasta. Vegetables: Sweet corn, root vegetables (potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, carrots, beetroot, parsnips, turnips), broccoli, carrots, green beans, peas, tomato sauce, squash, courgettes. Fruit: Dried fruit, apples, bananas, oranges (these fruits contain more carbohydrates than strawberries for example, which have a high water content). Drinks: Real fruit juice, smoothies, nectars, fruit drinks. Sweets and snacks: Sugar, honey, jam, boiled sweets, jelly babies, fruit yogurt, muffins, malt loaf, granola bars. Fortified foods: Specially formulated high-carb sports drinks, snacks and powders. Remember to refuel Make sure you refuel your carbohydrate stores as soon as possible after exercise or marathon racing. One to two 50g carbohydrate portions should be ingested within 2 hours post-exercise for optimal recovery. If you don’t feel hungry at the time, then drink a high-carb energy drink, followed by a carb-rich meal or snack as soon as possible thereafter. *Please note: These recommendations are generalisations, so please consult a clinical dietician to calculate your precise carbohydrate needs before making specific dietary changes.