ARTICLES:
- Carbs, Fat & Protein
- Low Back Pain
- Neurological Training
- Nutritional Guidelines
- Periodization
- Recovery, Weightloss & Gain
- Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements
- Weight vs. Technique
- Youth Guidelines
Nutrition for Recovery, Weight Loss and Weight Gain
Nutrition for recovery
Recovery after each workout or competition is a challenge for the athlete with a busy timetable. Recovery processes are complex and include refueling, rehydrating and repairing. Muscle and body protein metabolism requires a constant balance between protein breakdown and protein rebuilding. During exercise the balance shifts towards protein breakdown, while during recovery the balance tips in the opposite direction. Recent evidence shows that consuming protein immediately after exercise appears to enhance muscle uptake and retention of amino acids, and promote a more positive protein balance.
Some protein can actually enhance glycogen replacement in the initial hours after hard exercise. Protein, like carbohydrates, stimulates the action of insulin (hormone that transports glucose from the blood into the muscles). At least this has been observed in the hours after the training session. It is still not clear whether these benefits are apparent when the 24-hour picture is looked at, or whether this change will lead to increased muscle size and strength. But, at this stage it looks like a useful strategy to promote recovery from workouts that cause muscle damage or stimulate muscle growth. A protein-carbohydrate snack or meal after a workout makes good sense - not only for muscle repair and adaptation to training, but to provide carbohydrate fuel to restore muscle glycogen levels.
Recovery fluids: After a hard workout your top dietary priority should be to replace the fluids you lost by sweating so that your body can get back into water balance. To determine how much fluid to replace, you need to know how much water you lost during a goal is to lose no more than 2 percent of your body weight.
Recovery carbohydrates: Your muscles can replace glycogen at the average rate of about 5 percent per hour, thus taking at least 20 hours to fully replenish depleted muscle stores. You should ideally consume carbohydrate-rich foods and beverages within 15 minutes after your workout because enzymes responsible for making glycogen are most active at this time.
Recovery electrolytes: When you sweat, you lose not only water but also some minerals such as potassium and sodium that help your body function normally. You can easily replace these losses with the foods and fluids you consume after the event. Potassium is a mineral involved in maintaining normal water balance in your body. Good sources are bananas, orange juice, and yogurt. Sodium is another electrolyte that you lose when you sweat. In most cases, the typical diet adequately replaces sodium losses.
Nutrition for weight loss
Often times it is hard for athletes to lose weight while maintaining enough energy to perform their sport. This is a battle many athletes face, and this leads to failed attempts to lose the weight. What athletes need to focus on while trying to lose weight is that they still can consume their favorite foods but they may need to alter the amount consumed, or the time of day that the food is taken in. Often athletes, as well as average people, consume far too few calories during the day (breakfast and lunch) so this inevitably leads to extreme feelings of hunger and tiredness later in the evening. This leads the athlete to consume a very large dinner, justified by the fact that they hadn’t eaten much throughout the day.
What the athlete needs to do is eat bigger breakfasts and lunches, as well as consuming snacks throughout the day, so that when the evening comes the athlete can eat a smaller dinner. The majority of calories are needed during the day to carry out sports activities, so consuming these calories in earlier meals will provide the energy that your body needs. The athlete will be able to cut calories from their day, but these calories should be cut from the evening when your body doesn’t need as much fuel.
Another important fact to remember when trying to lose weight is that one should eat slowly. It takes your body 20 minutes to receive the signal that your stomach is full and you have consumed enough food. So no matter how much you consume before this time, you will never feel full. Another helpful hint includes not trying to completely cut out pleasurable foods, because when you do this you often rebound and consume too much of these foods when you are feeling vulnerable.
The most important thing to remember is that the easiest way to lose weight is to increase physical activity. With an athlete who is already very physically active, this can include riding a bike or running for an extra 30 minutes a day. Over time this will lead to the desired weight loss. Sometimes this can be accomplished during the day, but sometimes athletes do not have time, with their already full practice schedule, to include more activity. It is also important to remember that weight loss is slow, and you may not see the results that you want to see as quickly as you expect. But gradual weight loss is the best, and leads to permanent weight loss rather than the yo-yo effect with weight gain. Losing no more than one or two pounds per week is the safest way to lose weight.
When trying to decide how many calories to cut from your daily diet to lose weight, it is important to remember that you cannot cut too many calories because this often leads to failure and weight gain. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to survive (Basal Metabolic Rate) even when not physically active. The metabolic rate is the energy required to keep the baseline functions of the body working. A reduction in metabolic rate means a lower energy budget to survive on. This makes it harder to create the energy deficit that produces a loss of body fat. When deciding how many calories to cut, a rule of thumb is to cut about 20% of your total caloric needs. If you cut too many calories you will lose muscle rather than fat, which slows down your metabolism and your body’s ability to burn calories. This in turn makes it harder to create the energy deficit that produces a loss of body fat.
Gaining Weight
The easiest way to gain weight is to consume more calories throughout the day. To gain one pound it takes 3500 calories. An increase of 500 calories each day would ultimately lead to a weight gain of a pound in a week. Most athletes believe that the best way to gain weight is to increase the protein intake, but this is not the case (as has been stated earlier). Extra protein does not necessarily lead to increased weight and muscles.
Easy ways to increase calorie intake throughout the day include eating higher calorie foods and eating larger than normal portions, as well as eating more frequently throughout the day. For those athletes that find it hard to consume more foods in the day there are some subtle changes in the diet that may help. These include choosing more dense cereals when consuming cold cereal- by switching from flakes to granola increases the calorie intake. When consuming hot cereals, make them with milk rather than water to increase the calories. Choose fruits such as raisins, bananas, and pineapple over grapefruit and oranges because they contain less water. Add topping to your salad such as cottage cheese or beans to increase the caloric value. And choose hearty breads when making sandwiches- they contain more calories, and often contain more nutrients as well.
Hopefully this information has helped you formulate a better understanding of the nutrition your body needs for your sport. Feel free to contact the authors of this manual to aid in assisting you with more of your training needs.
Kevin Ebel, M.Ed., CSCS
Ginna Irwin, BS
Sources
Benardot, Dan. (2000). Nutrition for Serious Athletes. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics
Clark, Nancy. (1997). Sports Nutrition Guidebook. Brookline, MA: Sports Medicine Brookline
Berning, Jacqueline, & Steen, Suzanne. (1998) Nutrition for Sport and Exercise. Garthersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers, Inc.
Australian Institute of Sport: http://www.ais.org.au/nutrition/ Retrieved February 15, 2003.
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