Eating healthy to yield more

Published: 05/20/2010 - Updated: 08/15/2019

Today we know that for a period of training the idea is to make your body can reach a perfect nutritional status that allows a smooth competition or everyday fitness routine. This is true for those persons who are a mild-moderate physical activity (walking, jogging, swimming, etc.) without in order to compete as for those who participate in competitive events.

First, one must know, for example, the importance of having good reserves of glycogen and stay hydrated, since without adequate muscle energy reserves, we will not achieve the best results and could have health problems.

Now, we will analyze thet things to take into account to make our success in training tremendous!

Activities

  • Maintain a balanced diet rich in carbohydrates, especially starchy and high glycemic index, because they improve the synthesis of glycogen.
  • Take plenty of fluids in fresh fruit juice or drinking too much water. 10 mg of caffeine (3-4 hours)
  • Adapt meals at the training periods, trying to pass two hours between the last meal before training.
  • Do not limit meals to traditional schedules, try eating more frequently, five times a day.
  • Rest during the week, at least one day, especially to recharge glycogen stores, maybe it is better a three-day training and one day of rest, to train six days in a row without rest.
  • Eat more fresh or frozen vegetables, potatoes, fresh or dried fruit (mainly citrus), grains, pasta (whole wheat), brown rice, granola or muesli. Foods rich in carbohydrates don’t make you fat.
  • Eliminate foods high in fat, choose leaner meats and white (chicken and turkey). Reduce consumption of fat and carbohydrate substitute.
  • Try to do at least one meal a day without meat or with meat meals distributed throughout the plate
  • Find alternatives to mayonnaise or oily preparations for dressing salads, such as plain yogurt or citrus juices
  • Meet the members of the diet and analyze why some foods are more suitable than others. Try to cook in microwave as the food does not suffer a significant loss of nutrients and can save much time. You can prepare meals and freeze them.

The ideal food

The idea is to focus on getting the best food for a person doing regular physical activity, either as a leisure activity or sports supplement without competition or a training program.

The basic guidelines are:

Achieving an adequate energy supply as this is essential for good athletic performance. In these cases one must consider the energy needs for a person age, height, sex and work activity needs more energy for each hour of physical activity. Without going into detail usually a male person of 25 years of age, with a height of 1.70 m. medium body structure and perform a physical activity of 60 'per day, require not less than 2,500 calories per day. If such person is overweight or obese, calorie intake must be less than about 1800-2000 calories. This power need to be provided with food in a varied, complete, harmonious and balanced way.

Maintaining a varied and balanced diet, this means that a person involved in physical activity, eat all kinds of food, ensuring that there is a predominance of certain nutrients on others. There are no "virtuous" or "complete" food, having all the nutrients and perfect balance for our needs.

Achieving a correct and adequate hydration. Here we take into account body weight, age and time can we devote to this activity. In general and at least we could say that drinking an amount of between 2 and 2 1 / 2 liters of fluid per day. The basic contribution is water, mineral water, fruit juices, sports drinks and milk. This we consider water intake, because our body also produces 200 to 300 cc. of water for the metabolism of nutrients, and water constituent of food. And this depends on the food because as you can imagine, vegetables and fruits contain much more water than meat. In addition, within each gender about food contain more water than others (a watermelon is much more watery than an apple).

Eating foods rich in carbohydrates, that they represent a 55-58% of the calories needed for the day. Vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, cassava. Bread and bakery products, both white and comprehensive, the latter provide more vitamins, minerals and fiber. Pastas, Cereals, Sugar and jams but not at will. The complex carbohydrates or those that are rich in starch (the first mention) are more appropriate than simple (sugars and sweets). All will be transformed into glycogen as reserve material in the liver, but in humans this reserve is small, we reset it to use it for daily physical activity. Always, when we say this to use carbohydrates, many people associate with weight gain, but this is not true, if the amount is adequate.

Avoid fat. These should not exceed 30% of daily calories. They must be of animal and plant, with a predominance of the latter. In our body, fats are deposited in the form of triglycerides in adipose tissue and muscles. Fat-rich foods are: whole milk and its derivatives, cheeses, butter, eggs, meats, vegetable oils and nuts. On 30% fat, would 83 grams daily.

Consume proteins, they should represent between 12 and 15% of total calories daily. Proteins provide amino acids that are essential for the role they play in the synthesis and metabolism of substances. These proteins may come from animal foods (dairy products), cheese, eggs and meat. Food or vegetables, bread, vegetables and cereals. There is a misconception that when a person do sports, should consume very large quantities of proteins and so are the diets with 4 or 5 egg whites per day, dried fruit and a variety of foods. All this is necessary because we are not talking about feeding a particular sport, where sometimes and for some reasons we have to resort to certain special diets and specific. For 2500 calories, protein would be 75 to 90 grams daily.

About the author
  • Miriam Reyes

    Miriam Reyes is a professional expert in nutrition and dietetics. She has more than 12 years of experience in caring for patients with overweight and eating problems. She studied at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac (UNIVA), where she obtained a degree in nutrition. Linkedin profile.

2 Replies to “Eating healthy to yield more”
  • Jacob says:

    I love to find articles talking about how to improve the diet when performing exercises and the food the body needs to have a better performance not only while working in the gym but while doing other things during the day, I?m going to compare the intake needed with my intake and then see if I?m ok with my diet, thanks a lot

    • Stacy says:

      This article was fantastic. I just loved reading every word of it. A few years ago I read a book that changed my life, and my paradigm. It was called “The Good Life” by Helen and Scott Nearing. These two individuals sought ought an all inclusive experiment to find what really made life good, and they found that healthy, wholesome and mindful eating, growing of food, and self-sustenance was key.