Nutrients & Diet Overview
The Right Macronutrient / Micronutrient Balance
To understand performance nutrition you must first understand the nutrient make-up of food and how each nutrient contributes to the energy production cycle. All foods are made up of macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients are carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Micronutrients are the vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other known and unknown food chemicals. Both food groups are essential to peak performance.
Athletes need to have a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates including moderate amounts of protein and fat. Your diet should also contain a wide multi-coloured variety of fresh fruits and vegetables – these are the best sources of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other important food chemicals.
Keep in mind that the various colours of fruits and vegetables represent a different group of micronutrients and they all work synergistically together –so eat your colours!
The Role of Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats in Athletic Performance
Carbohydrates in the body are broken down into sugar molecules that are then stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen. The body’s preferred fuel for endurance sports is muscle glycogen.
If muscle glycogen is used up faster than it is replaced, your glycogen stores become depleted. Glycogen depletion leads to fatigue and the inability to maintain a high level of intensity during training and competition.
To prevent this from happening, you need to get about 60 – 70% of your daily total calories from complex carbohydrates. The best sources of carbohydrates are whole grains – whole wheat breads, cereals, pasta, legumes, beans, peas and of course, fruits and vegetables.
To figure out how many grams of carbohydrates you should be consuming each day, multiply your weight in pounds by 3.2.
How Much Protein Do You Need?
Remember that muscle tissue is made up of 22% protein and 78% water. Without adequate protein intake, damaged muscle tissue cannot be properly repaired and your body cannot build new fibers. This will in turn limit your development and eventually lead to injury.
The body uses protein for muscle growth and repair. During intense training and competition, muscle tissue can be severely broken down. Therefore, the competitive athlete must consume enough protein for repairing damaged muscle fibers and growing new ones.
Endurance athletes need approximately 1.4 to 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram bodyweight (BW) (1kg is approximately 2.2 lbs). Good sources of protein include lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and dried beans. Approximately 15-20% of your daily calories should come from protein.
How Much Fat Do You Need?
Fat is the body’s primary energy source during low to moderate intensity endurance activities. This does not mean that extreme athletes don’t need fat in their diets – just the opposite. The body needs Essential Fatty Acids 9EFA’s – omega 3 and 6 fatty acids) that assist with almost all bodily functions including the transport of vital nutrients across the cell membrane for energy production.
These fats are called essential because your body cannot produce them – they must be supplied by your diet. Some good sources of EFA’s are cold water fish 9like salmon and trout) and flaxseed oil. Approximately 10-15% of your daily calories should come from fat.
What About The Micronutrients?
Dancers, runners, cyclists, bodybuilders, martial artists etc. are all athletes whose bodies require a great deal of energy to sustain the level of intense activities they perform. Unfortunately, I find that the average exerciser is far more nutrition conscious than most athletes. If you are an athlete or very active person, take note: This group often experience more strokes and heart attacks than the average non-exercising individual. Shocking isn’t it?
If you are a very active person your body requires a great deal more nutrients for the energy production cycle. Energy for your working muscles comes only from the foods you eat and if you only eat one or two meals per day, your body is nutrition starved.
Every time you dance, run jump, kick, bike or swim without proper nutrition, your body has to draw upon its reserves. In many cases, it has to pull nutrients from other important body functions…like getting rid of toxic waste build-up, making sure enough blood and oxygen is supplied to your heart and working muscles, keeping internal body temperatures at a safe level, and a host of other critical functions.
In short, to engage in athletic activity without proper nutrition is not only stupid, but over the long run it will also prove deadly. When you burn wood in a fireplace you get fire and ashes. Likewise, when your body converts food into usable cellular energy (ATP) you not only get energy, but you also get cellular waste…those deadly free radicals you’ve heard about that bounce around your body and burn holes into the membrane of health cells. If free radicals continue to build up in your body, which is the case with very active people with poor nutrition habits, eventually this build up may lead to a stroke or heart attack even in seemingly healthy individuals.