While sports drinks, bars, and gels have a proven role in improving athletic performance, their intended use before, during, and after exercise is for hydration, energizing, or to help speed recovery. What you’re eating and drinking the rest of the time is just as important, however. Your daily eating pattern is critical, because it serves as the foundation from which you train and compete. Your daily diet supplies you with the energy and nutrients you need to optimize adaptations to your training, to recover quickly between workouts, to maintain an appropriate body weight while you train, and to stay in good health so you can train and compete at your best.
The following guidelines will help you eat healthfully every day. Carbohydrates are a precious energy source for anyone engaged in a training program. Your daily eating pattern should be mostly made up of foods that are good sources of this important macronutrient. High-carb foods include vegetables, fruits, breads, cereal, rice, and pasta. According to Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating, a good diet includes the following:
- Vegetables: 3–5 servings daily. A serving is ½ cup cooked vegetables, 1 cup lettuce or spinach, ½ baked potato, or ½ cup vegetable juice
- Fruits: 2–4 servings daily. A serving is 1 piece of whole fruit like a banana, apple, or orange, or ½ cup of berries, strawberries, or peaches
- Bread, cereal, rice, and pasta: 6–11 servings daily. A serving is 1 slice bread, 1 roll, 28 g cold breakfast cereal, ¾ cup cooked cereal, or ½ cup cooked rice or pasta
As your training level increases, so too will your need for calories and carbs. Feel free to get those extra carbs from the three foods groups above. Protein provides the amino acid building blocks you need to repair and build new muscle tissue in response to your training. Food groups particularly rich in protein include nuts, beans, dairy, fish, poultry, meat, and eggs.
- Dairy foods: 2–4 servings per day for those who consume dairy. A serving is 1 cup milk or ¾ cup of yogurt, 50 g cheese, 1 cup cottage cheese, or ½ cup ice cream. Whenever possible, consume low-fat and nonfat dairy items. If you don’t or can’t consume dairy foods, consider a daily calcium supplement with vitamin D
- Other protein foods: 2–3 servings daily. A serving is 30 g peanut butter, ¾ cup cooked beans, ½ cup peas, or lentils, 150 g tofu, 75 g of fish, poultry, or meat, or 2 eggs. If you eat poultry, consume it without the skin. If you eat meat, select leaner cuts or trim the fat before cooking. Baking, grilling, broiling, and poaching are preferred over frying
A few words to the wise about fats, oils, and sauces, as well as snacks and sweets:
- Fats, oils, and sauces can pack a lot of calories, and you need your extra calories to come from carbs. So don’t overdo it on butter, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressings, cream sauces, or gravies. Put them on the side and only use as much as you need. Low-fat salad dressings and mayonnaise, ketchup, cocktail sauce, mustard, relish, barbeque sauce, salsa, and vinegar get the green light.
- Sweet snacks and sodas are high in carbs, but don’t consume them in place of fresh fruit, vegetables, cereals, grains, and pasta. Jams and fruit preserves get a thumbs up for satisfying a sweet tooth, but minimize your intake of high-fat, sweet desserts like cookies, cakes, pies, and chocolates. Air-popped or microwaved light popcorn is a great high-carb, healthy snack.
About POWERBARPOWERBAR is committed to helping enhance the performance of athletes by providing cutting-edge sports nutrition products, information, and tools. Backed by decades of sports nutrition experience, POWERBAR’s product line includes a full spectrum of great-tasting food and beverage options developed to meet the nutrition, energy, hydration, and recovery needs of athletes. POWERBAR proudly sponsors Ironman Triathlon events worldwide. To learn more about POWERBAR, go to www.powerbar.com.
Disclaimer:
The scientific information found on the powerbar.com website is derived from the following sources unless otherwise stated:
American College of Sports Medicine, Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner ER, Maughan RJ, Montain SJ, Stachenfeld NS. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Exercise and fluid replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2007;39:377–390.
American College of Sports Medicine; American Dietetic Association; Dietitians of Canada. Joint Position Statement: nutrition and athletic performance. American College of Sports Medicine, American Dietetic Association, and Dietitians of Canada. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2000;32:2130–2145.
Burke L, Dean V, eds. Clinical sports nutrition. McGraw-Hill Companies, Australia, 2006; 415–453.
Currell K, Jeukendrup A. Superior endurance performance with ingestion of multiple transportable carbohydrates. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2008;40:275-281.
Jeukendrup AE, Moseley L, Mainwaring GI, Samuels S, Perry S, Mann. CH. Exogenous carbohydrate oxidation during ultraendurance exercise. J Appl Physiol 2006;100:1134-1141.
Asker Jeukendrup, Michael Gleeson: Sport Nutrition, An Introduction to Energy Production and Performance, Human Kinetics 2004
Expert Panel:
Trent Stellingwerff PhD, BSc, Senior Research Scientist – Performance Nutrition, Nestlé Research Center
Christopher D. Jensen PhD, MPH, RD Nutrition & Epidemiology Researcher
Tricia L. Griffin RD, CSSD, POWERBAR Sports Nutritionist
Topics:
Pre-Workout, During, Post-Workout, Hydration, Recovery, Carbs, Energy, Protein, Fiber
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