If you want real performance, use real fuel.

Fueling Your Workouts

A couple of days ago, I conducted a talk at the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers on athletic nutrition and fueling. This is a favorite topic of mine because it’s much too often ignored by most people who aren’t elite athletes. Personally, I think it's crazy to put stuff in your body if you don't know exactly what it is. Is it food? Is it not food? You don't know? Well, guess what ... the one hundred trillion cells that comprise your body don't know either.

100,000,000,000,000 cells—each is made with whatever you put in your mouth.

Words I live by: If you want real performance, use real fuel. This is universal; how well do you think your plants would do on a sports drink? What about your dog?

Here we go—Real Sports Nutrition 101:

Nutrients: what they do and what they are
Water

• Dehydration is the main cause of underperformance.
• Find your sweat rate and rehydrate accordingly during workouts.
• Sip water throughout the day, and don’t bother gulping down an entire bottle when you are thirsty; it will go right through you (think of trying to water a dried-out plant).
• Juice, tea, soup, vodka and cleverly-named water-type beverages are not water. Even the ones that tell you they’re smart.
• Cold fluids are absorbed more slowly. Your body heats them up before they are assimilated, thus using up energy reserves.

Carbohydrates

• These provide energy for muscle contractions and short, intense bouts of exercise.
• Carbohydrates are sugars and starches occurring in food. They are broken down and stored in your muscles and liver for energy.
• Starchy/high-carb foods:
• Fruits and vegetables
• Bananas, plantains, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, rutabagas, winter squashes, beets, parsnips, potatoes, taro
• Legumes, peas and beans
• Grains
• Non-starchy/low-carb foods:
• Greens, most vegetables, berries, peaches, nectarines, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, apples, apricots, papaya

Fats

• Main fuel source for long duration, low-to-moderate intensity exercise (endurance sports, such as marathons, triathlons and watching TV).
• Aid in accessing stored carbohydrates.
• Need to be consumed away from meals that surround the workout. In other words, eat fats when not directly fueling a workout.
• Healthy fats list:
• Essential Fatty Acids (Omega-3s)
• Organic coconut oil
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Pastured butter and cheese, especially goat, and if you are not a wimp, try raw
• Fatty fish—choose carefully
• Nuts and seeds—not peanuts
• Avocados
• Olives
• Spirulina
• Primrose oil

Proteins

• Maintain and repair body tissues.
• Very important for maintenance of the central nervous system, and, in combination with carbohydrates, are responsible for the “feel” of the workout.
• Very minimally used to power muscle activity.
• Incomplete proteins:
• are found in most vegetative foods
• lack one or more essential amino acids in correct proportions, as necessary for good nutrition and health
• need to be properly combined with other foods
• Complete proteins:
• contain all essential amino acids
• are found in all animal products, including dairy and eggs
• All animal products
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Quinoa
• Buckwheat
• Amaranth
• Spirulina