There is no such things as one size fits all. Whether we’re talking sports bras or nutrition. Food is so incredibility personal! We eat to nourish our bodies, respect our cultures, honor our religion, commune with family and friends and more. That’s before you even take into account a person’s taste preferences. And, yes – food is fuel! For endurance athletes even more.
We can spend so much time focusing on our training plans, muscle groups, weather, workout gear but if we don’t factor in a fueling plan we’ll never reach our full potential.
But why?! As endurance athletes your body is your car. You need to add gas to your car to drive you to work, you need to add fuel to your body for your Sunday long run too. If we don’t fuel, your body might meet the expectations you set for it BUT it will do so at its downfall. When we workout without fuel we’ll be breaking down any energy store it can find in that moment. Our bodies prefer carbohydrates as our main substrate and will store them as glycogen which is easily converted to energy in the moment. If that’s not provided or accessible your body will breakdown muscle tissue instead! Those are muscle that you need to complete your workout. It’ll also turn to the usage of fat storage. Sounds great – in theory but it’s a very inefficient energy conversion. This doesn’t mean you won’t complete your workout. It means you’ll likely find yourself feeling sluggish and definitely won’t finish feeling strong or confident in yourself.
Because of that carbohydrates are the nutrition king for endurance sports! A person’s brain uses roughly 120g CHO/day, add in general activities of daily living, then ask that same body to bike 20 miles the CHO needs are even higher! An endurance athletes CHO needs range from 3-10g/kg varying by the duration and intensity. With such high energy and specifically CHO needs it’s crucial for endurance athletes to eat multiple times/day. So what foods are carbohydrates?
Bagels, fruits, rice, tortillas, bread, sweets, pasta, granola, cereal etc. Load them up! We’ll be including CHOs every time we eat a snack or meal.
This is where our endurance nutrition goals may differ from our non-endurance friends. We all needs CHOs, but how we create are balanced plates will differ from person to person. A person looking to manage their new diabetes diagnosis and a person training for a marathon have very different goals. Different goals = different plate configurations. Our fueling plan should take into account how to support our bodies to train at the duration, intensity, and frequency we ask it to. Fueling will support us in the moment as well as to help our bodies recover well afterwards. Before we add exercise needs, we need to ensure we’re meeting our bodies health and well being expectations. First establishing a solid healthy foundation is key to preventing injuries and helping us learn how to better fuel for more.
Moral of the story – under fueling won’t support our endurance goals. Focus on eating multiple times/day and include CHOs before, during and after your workouts.
