Nutrition
I'm going
to have to disappoint those of you waiting for delicious easy-to-cook receipts
on this one. I'm not going to reveal to be on some super trendy come-and-go
diet either. What I will do is cover some of the very basic things that I
think are important in an endurance athlete's diet. In addition, I'm giving a
brief look at planning my race nutrition.
Everyday Eating
Now, I
like my food and I guess it's fair to say, often quite a lot of it. I'm not the
guy you want to share your check with in a restaurant. Nine times out of ten
you'd just end up paying for my seemingly endless appetite. It's probably
needless to say I'm not exactly counting my calories but prefer to go by the
feeling instead. This is not to say I wouldn't pay attention at all of what I
eat however. As an endurance athlete I do need a lot of calories but it's not
indifferent where the calories come from. Last year I read a quote from two
time Ironman World Champion Chris "Macca" McCormack that said something on the lines that if
you cut carbs out of your diet, your training might suffer. Take away proteins
and you'll have malnutrition within months. Remove fat - you'll face incapacitation within a few weeks. It's easy to see that a balanced diet with all
three macronutrients is essential for endurance performance. I will leave the
debate about the exact percentages of each macronutrient one should eat to the
better educated.
As I said
already, I like to go by the feeling and adjust my calorie intake by varying
mainly the amount of carbs according to the phase of the season. During
offseason I don't need that much energy and cut back from carbs. During high
workload training phase I can eat pretty much as much as I want and still my
weight tends to drop a little. When it's time to taper for a race and there is
a reduction in training, I'll cut back a bit from total calories but maintain
the intake of carbs to fill the body's glycogen stores for the race. I don't do
any special carbo-loading procedures anymore as I found them only upsetting my stomach
and making me feel bloated without any performance advantage.
In
pursuit of a healthy and balanced diet, at home we cook all our foods by
ourselves and try to use mostly unprocessed ingredients and lots of fresh
vegetables. My hallmark breakfast consists of muesli and a handful of different
nuts and seeds on top of plain Greek yoghurt with a bit of honey and cocoa
nibs. And of course coffee! Without being obsessed about it I've been
limiting the use of wheat for about a year and feel it's for the better. When
we do use wheat, for pasta for example, we try to at least use whole grain. I
do not eat sweets but I am sucker for the occasional chocolate and icecream.
Training and Racing Fuel
I'm a long time user of PowerBar products when it comes for specific sports energy. Since last August I've also been lucky enough to be sponsored by their Finnish importer, Pyka. This suits me more than well because most of the races opt for PowerBar as the fuel provided at the aid stations.
When
calculating the required amount of calories for races, I have been using PhD
Paul Larsen's Never-Bonk application. Basically I'm trying to get in about 100 g of carbs every hour during long course racing because that's about as much the
body can digest according to some studies. This consists of a shot of PowerGel
every 20 minutes and about 0,75 liters of IsoActive sports drink in an hour.
The need for liquids varies obviously with the conditions and the effort I'm
working at and if necessary I'll have some water as well. After training sessions I'll have a PowerBar recovery drink or protein bar at least when I've planned for another session later during the day or if the next meal is further than 30 minutes away. I believe it's very important for the recovery to get some protein and carbs immediately after the training.
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