A Summary of Things You Need To Know About Exercise/Sports Nutrition

1. Look beyond your weight when determining Health. It’s not your weight that matters. It’s what constitutes. your weight. Find a way to learn if you have too little muscle or too much fat, and find a strategy (exercise and eating correctly) that increases muscle and lowers fat. The numbers on the weighing scales might stay the same, but you will look better, and will be healthier.
2. Building muscle takes more than just protein. Building muscle requires a combination of; *Added resistance to muscles (resistances exercises) *Having a good distribution of nutrients to sustain tissue health. *Adequate sleep. *Consuming protein in the right amounts, at the right times to encourage muscle protein synthesis.
3. Infrequent Meals Cause Problems. Meal skipping, or eating in a pattern that fails to satisfy energy requirements in real time , creates many problems including higher body fat levels, and lower lean mass. Interestingly some studies show that more frequent eating is associated with lower total caloric intake because of better ‘appetite hormone’ control.
4. Eating Good Foods Helps Keep You Healthy. Inadequate intake of fresh fruits and vegetables may result in higher body fat percentage, and reduced exercise/activity performances. Consuming plenty of fresh fruit and veg, helps to sustain good bacterial colonies that live in the gut, and an additional benefit is that fruits and vegetables give you the carbs you may lack for maximal performance.
5. Good Food or Bad Food ? There is no perfect food, and if you keep eating the same foods because you believe its good for you, you put yourself at nutritional risk. There is no substitute for eating a wide variety of foods that are well distributed throughout the day. You then don’t get too much of anything potential bad, and you expose tissues to all the nutrients they need.
6. Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport/ Exercise can be a Problem. The best exercise performance occurs when you have enough energy to support the exercise. If you frequently consume your energy requirements after the workout, be aware of the potential health and performance consequences. You cant drive a car on an empty tank and neither can you perform well if your tank is empty. NOTE: Best to avoid any heavy meals at two to three hours before a workout or an event. Its sufficient to have a light carb snack one hour approx before, and limit any other intake to sipping water, or an isotonic drink before during and after your exercise or event, every 10-15 minutes.
7. Poor Hydration Poor Performance. Sustaining the best possible fluid balance is important for many reasons, including sustaining heart stroke volume, sustaining sweat rates, enabling delivery of nutrients to working cells, and enhancing the removal of metabolic waste from your cells.
8. Recovery from Exercise is just as Important as the Exercise. Putting stress on muscles through exercise isn’t enough to reap the full health benefits. You must give muscles an opportunity to recover from the stress (at least 24 hours rest before exercising the same muscle group) so that they can benefit from the exercise, and recover sufficiently.
9. Learn How to Lower Stress. Stress levels impact eating behavior. High stress levels can lead to the consumption of foods that are high in fats and sugar. Find a strategy for stress reduction that can help you to sustain optimal nutrition, which will benefit both exercise performance and health.

Reference: Dan Benardot PhD, DHC, Dec 4, 2018

SUMMARY: *Look beyond your weight when determining Health. A regular weekly exercise routine that includes aerobic and resistance exercises, along with an improved diet, will reduce fat and increase muscle fibre. *Building muscle requires a combination of resistance exercises, protein, a good diet, and adequate rest and sleep. *Avoid skipping meals. Develop a regular diet that includes plenty of fruit and veg along with a sufficient amount of protein. This will sustain the energy requirements for your weekly exercise classes/activities. *Avoid eating any heavy meals 2 to 3 hours approx, before your weekly exercise routines. Meals can take up to 2-3 hours to digest, depending on the foods involved, and exercising while the digestive system is still at work can cause problems like cramping, and digestive troubles. People can react differently, and a light snack like a banana, fruit smoothie, energy bar, oatmeal, an hour approx before activity can work for some. *Hydration is very important though (as mentioned above), before, during and after activity. Always have water to hand, or an isotonic drink. *An easy to make homemade isotonic drink: If using a standard exercise drinks bottle, fill with water, add an eggcup or two of GreenTop Miwadi, (That’s the ‘WITH SUGAR’ Miwadi) and 6-7 twists of Himalayan pink salt (the cleanest salt around, and available in most supermarkets). *Finally, give your muscles a chance to recovery after a good aerobic and resistance class (at least 24 hours), long run or cycle, or any cardiovascular and resistance activity that is performed at a moderate and vigorous intensity..

Best of Luck.

D