Nutrition for sports, carbohydrate loading

SPORTS NUTRITION

sports-nutrition Nutrition for sports is very important for both professional sportspeople and those who enjoy running, tennis or football at the weekend. If you don’t eat the right foods you will feel tired quickly, get cramps and may be more likely to suffer injuries. Have you heard of carbohydrate loading? Diets to increase strength or endurance? It is important to make sure you get the right type of fuel at the right time, this depends on the type, frequency and intensity of the activity.

Energy Requirements

To understand the best way to supply energy requirements during exercise, you firstly need to understand how energy is stored and utilised in the body.

Energy is available from 4 main sources in your body:

The free glucose being carried around in your blood- this depends on when and what you last ate! Blood glucose levels are tightly controlled by insulin, unless you have diabetes.

Muscle Glycogen (When the glucose in your blood tops a certain level the hormone insulin is produced which encourages this glucose to be stored in your liver and muscle tissue as glycogen.) On average between 1785 & 2000 calories are available as plasma glucose & muscle glycogen.

Fat molecules (free fatty acids) are also travelling around in your blood so they can be transported to your cells to be used for energy.

Stored Fat - if you haven’t eaten for a while or you are exercising, your fat cells are encouraged to release free fatty acids back into the blood so they too can be used as fuel.

However, although the majority of the energy available to the human body is from fat stores it depends on the intensity and duration of the activity which fuel will be used. This is because your body needs oxygen to be able to use fat as an energy source.

When exercise intensity increases, your body cannot provide enough oxygen to carry on using fat as the main fuel source so starts using muscle glycogen stores as the main energy source. As there is only limited capacity for storing glycogen in the muscles, this soon runs out. This is normally when you “hit the wall”.

The body’s capacity for storing glycogen can be increased by following a carbohydrate loading diet prior to an event or by drinking sports drinks containing glucose regularly during the activity. For more information or a diet plan, please call 0800 612 4701 or click here

Protein Requirements

protein-requirements Strength training, for example body building, may mean protein requirements are higher than for sedentary individuals. This is because protein may be used as a fuel during exercise, there is an increased need for protein to replace muscle tissue damaged during strength training and to build muscle mass.

Like energy requirements during exercise, protein requirements depend on the intensity and duration of the activity. Current recommendations suggest a protein intake of between 1.4 and 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight. If you would like help achieving this, please call 0800 612 4701 or click here.