Anita Bean

Nutrition for Sport

Carb Up

Eating Before Training

Drinking Before Training

Eating During Training

Drinking During Training

Eating and Drinking After Exercise

Carb Up

What and when you eat in relation to your workout makes a big difference to your energy, your performance and how much body fat you burn. In general regular exercisers need around 4 – 7 g of carbohydrate for each kg of their body weight.

Activity Level	g carbohydrate/ kg/ day
3 – 5 hours/ week	4 – 5
5 – 7 hours/ week	5 – 6
1 – 2 hours/ day	6 – 7
2 – 4 hours/ day	7 – 8
More than 4 hours/ day	8 - 10

Eating Before Training

Ideally, you should have a light meal 2 - 4 hours before your workout, according to a study at the University of North Carolina in the US. This will allow you to exercise longer and perform better.

Slow-burning or low GI meals – these produce a gradual rise in blood sugar levels– help spare muscle glycogen and avoid problems of low blood sugar levels during long training sessions, according to studies at the University of Sydney.

Eating protein or fat with a high GI carbohydrate will lower its GI – for example a slice of bread with butter or cheese has a lower GI than bread on its own.

Pre-workout meals (to be eaten 2 – 4 hours before exercise)

• Sandwich/ roll/ bagel/ wrap filled with chicken, fish, cheese, egg or peanut butter.
• Jacket potato with beans, cheese, tuna, coleslaw or chicken
• Pasta with tomato-based pasta sauce and cheese
• Rice or other grains with chicken or fish and vegetables
• Porridge made with milk
• Wholegrain cereal (e.g. bran or wheat flakes, muesli or Weetabix) with milk or yoghurt

Pre-workout snacks (to be eaten 1 – 2 hours before exercise)

• Fresh fruit
• Dried apricots or sultanas
• Smoothie (home made or ready-bought)
• Yoghurt
• Shake (homemade or a commercial meal replacement shake)
• Energy bar ; cereal bar or breakfast bar (without hydrogenated fat)
• Fruit loaf or raisin bread

Drinking Before Training

Don’t go for gold
Watching your urine is the best way to check your body’s hydration. Dark gold-coloured urine is a sure sign that you’re low on fluid. Drink plenty of water and aim for light-yellow coloured urine.

Beat your thirst
Drink before you get thirsty. By the time your thirst mechanism kicks in you will have lost around 2% of your body weight as water.

Drink early
Drink at least 2 glasses of water (400 – 600 ml) 2 - 3 hours before you workout. This is the amount recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine.

Be a bottle baby
Carry a bottle of water with you everywhere.

Get into the drinking habit
Have a glass of water first thing in the morning and then schedule drink stops during your day. Aim for at least 8 glasses (1 ½ - 2 l) daily, and more in hot weather or workout days.

Eating During Training

For most activities lasting less than an hour, knocking back anything other than water is unnecessary. But if you are planning to exercise for longer than 1 hour, consuming 30 g – 60 g carbohydrate per hour can help you keep going longer. This carbohydrate helps to keep your blood sugar levels steady and fuels your muscles, particularly in the latter stages of your workout when glycogen reserves are likely to be low.

Eat little and often
Your goal is to maintain a steady supply of carbohydrate entering your bloodstream. Aim to consume 15 – 30 g every 30 minutes.

Go for the fast-burn
Choose fast-burning – high or moderate GI - carbohydrates as you need to get the carbs into your bloodstream rapidly. Sugar, glucose and maltodextrin (glucose polymers) would be suitable but solid foods work equally well, according to one study at Cornell University, US.

Workout foods (when training for longer than 60 minutes)
Eat these with plenty of water

• Energy; cereal or breakfast bar (without hydrogenated fat)
• Energy gel
• Dried fruit – raisins, sultanas, apricots or dates
• Bananas
• Biscuits – fig rolls, jaffa cakes and digestives
• Chocolate
• Fruit cake or malt loaf

The sizes of bars, gels and biscuits vary. Check the carbohydrate content on the label to work out how much you’ll need to supply 30 – 60 g per hour. Choose products that supply less than 5 g fat per portion.

Drinking During Training

Losing the equivalent of 2% of your body weight as sweat - that’s a mere 1.3 kg loss if you weigh 65 kg – results in a 10 – 20 % drop in your performance (or aerobic capacity).
The American College of Sports Medicine and American Dietetics Association recommend drinking 150 – 350 ml every 15 – 20 minutes. If you can only manage a few sips at a time, then make sure you do that frequently, say every 10 minutes

You should start drinking early during your workout as it takes about 30 minutes for the fluid to be absorbed into your bloodstream.

Don’t wait until you feel thirsty as this indicates that you are already on your way to dehydration!

Workouts lasting less than one hour
For most activities, water is all you need. It is absorbed relatively fast into your bloodstream so does a very good job at keeping your body hydrated. It’s cheap, plentiful and readily available. If you’re not keen on the taste and cannot force enough down, flavour it with a little cordial, fruit juice or high-juice squash. Obviously, any kind of squash or juice contributes extra sugar (carbohydrate) but, provided it’s well diluted, this won’t harm your performance.

Workouts lasting more than one hour
Sports drinks, diluted juice and high-juice squash are often a better choice than plain water when you are working out continually for longer than 60 minutes. The sugars they contain not only provide fuel for your exercising muscles but they also speed up the absorption of water into your bloodstream.

Aim to consume 30 – 60 g of carbohydrate per hour - that’s equivalent to 500ml – 1 l of an isotonic sports drink (containing 6 g sugar per 100 ml) or fruit juice diluted 50/50 with water.

Start drinking early in your workout as it takes about 30 minutes for the water and sugars to reach your bloodstream.

Training for fat loss?
If you are aiming to lose body fat, drink plain water during your workout. Sports drinks add extra calories and, in some cases, may even supply as many - or more – calories as you are burning off!

After Exercise

Amazingly, it’s after - not during - your workout when your body gets stronger and fitter.

Replace fluids
You need to replace the fluid you have lost during exercise as soon as possible afterwards. Failure to do so can leave you feeling listless and with a headache.

As a rule of thumb, you need to drink 750 ml of water for every ½ kg (1 lb) of body weight lost during your workout.

Drinking slowly rather than guzzling the lot in one go will hydrate you better.

Water, diluted juice and sports drinks are all good fluid replacers.

Replace electrolytes
Unless you have been sweating heavily, electrolyte (mineral salts) loss is less critical than water loss. These can be easily replaced by food eaten in your next normal meal. But if you have been exercising hard for longer than one hour and lost a lot of fluid through sweating, you may need to replace those electrolytes straight away with a sports drink. The sodium in sports drinks helps your body to retain the fluid better.

Replace carbohydrate
Carbohydrate helps your muscles recover after exercise and provides the fuel needed for your next workout. And it is converted into glycogen one and a half times faster than normal during the 2 hours after training.

If you workout daily, speedy recovery is crucial so have a carbo drink or snack as soon as possible after your workout, ideally no later than 30 minutes afterwards.

According to research at the University of Iowa, drinks containing approximately 6 g carbohydrate/ 100 ml (range 3 – 8g/ 100ml) are absorbed the most rapidly.

Studies at Yale University found that sodium encourages water retention, reduces urine output and so rehydrate athletes better after training.

Add protein
Your post-workout drink or snack should, ideally, include protein as well as carbohydrate. According to researchers at Texas State University in the US, eating a mixture of carbohydrate and protein speeds glycogen recovery faster than eating carbohydrate alone. They found that adding a little protein to post-workout carbs boosted glycogen storage by almost 40%. It also promoted faster muscle repair and growth in weight trainers.

Here’s why. The combination of protein and carbs stimulates insulin release, which prompts the muscle cells to take up glucose (carbohydrate) and amino acids (the building blocks of protein) faster from the bloodstream.

Get your antioxidants
Have you noticed how hard training sometimes leaves your muscles really sore afterwards? One of the factors responsible is a build up of free radicals (molecules that have one or more unpaired electrons in their orbit), which are generated during exercise. Unchecked, they can eventually lead to heart disease and cancer but, in the sort-term, they can damage cell membranes and make your muscles sore. While regular exercise increases your body’s natural defences against free radicals, boost them further by consuming plenty of foods rich in antioxidant nutrients. Antioxidants are found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and pulses

What to eat after your workout

The ideal post-exercise snack should contain carbohydrate and a little protein. A study at the University of Texas at Austin in the US, found that a ratio of about 3:1 works best. So, aim to consume about 3 g of carbs for every 1 g of protein.

Refuelling Snacks
(To be eaten within 2 hours after exercise)
• A meal replacement shake
• A couple of pieces of fresh fruit with a drink of milk
• 1 or 2 cartons of yoghurt
• A smoothie (crushed fresh fruit whizzed in a blender)
• A homemade milkshake
• A yoghurt drink
• A sports bar
• A tuna or cottage cheese sandwich
• A handful of dried fruit and nuts
• A few rice cakes with jam and cottage cheese
• A bowl of wholegrain cereal with milk
• A bowl of porridge made with milk
• Jacket potato with tuna or cottage cheese