Sports Nutrition

CEBU, Philippines - The only restaurant in Cebu I know that offers sports nutrition meals is the Old Spaghetti House in SM. These meals offer choices of pre-exercise and post-exercise menu. I tried the fish fettucelli as a post exercise meal. If you are like me who is conscious about dietary regimen, you must visit Old Spaghetti House. If you haven’t tried meals that are prepared for sports nutrition, it is about time you did.

Sports Nutrition is not just for athletes. It is for those who are conscious about matching their dietary regimen with their workout regimen. Many of us tend to think that because we are into exercise, we can eat what we want. We tend to think that just because we are shedding off sweat, we can reduce and get those muscles easily toned. Truth is, a fitness or workout regimen won’t work without a dietary regimen.

It follows a simple equation that for anything you expend, you must replenish. Our body is no mean machine. Each time you push this to the limits, muscles are torn, cells are destroyed and the only way to replenish it is with the right nutrition. Sports nutrition is a science of maintaining food such as vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, proteins and sugars necessary for health, growth and maximum performance. In other words, if you want maximum performance from your workout regimen, you just cannot eat anything or drink anything. Sports nutrition means knowing the right amount of food and fluids for specific training.

There are times when a person can feel discouraged about exercise because no matter how much they work out, they are still fat. They get this notion that workout may not be for them. Often this is because of incompatible nutrition planning for specific training. What happens is that if you exercise with improper or incompatible nutrition plan, the tendency is the regimen won’t work, you become weak and you develop other diseases. That is why if you are into exercise, you must have strategic diet planning to enhance and optimize performance not just in the gym but in your everyday life.

How then do we go about a sports nutrition prepared meal? There are two things about sports nutrition. One is before exercise and the other is after exercise. For pre-exercise or before exercise meals, you will need fuel to strengthen muscles and build tissues. Here it is important to get the right kind of calories.

So how does one get the right kind of calories? Carbohydrate is a predominant energy source for strength training where these are stored as glycogen in the muscles. Sources of carbohydrate are food rich in starch such as whole grain breads, cereals, pasta and grains. The harder and longer you work out, the more glycogen or carbohydrates you will need. It used to be that dieters were made to eat only one cup rice apparently to lose weight. That advice is like asking a person to commit suicide. If you are into exercise and eat less rice, you are actually depriving your body of the fuel it needs to keep you going.

Protein is basic for building muscle tissues. Water is needed to replace fluids that are lost during exercise.

After exercise, it is important to consume carbohydrates such as fruit or juice within 15 minutes post-exercise to help restore glycogen. Combining protein and carbohydrate in two hours after exercise doubles the insulin response which results in more stored glycogen. Consuming protein helps to rebuild muscle tissue that is damaged during intense, prolonged exercise. If you are looking for the best way to refuel your body after long, strenuous endurance exercise, a 4:1 combination of carbohydrate and protein is a good choice – that is four grams of carbohydrate for every one gram of protein. Eating more protein than that has a negative impact because it slows rehydration and glycogen replenishment.

Sports nutrition is not anything new. It has been there since ancient Greeks and Romans started the Olympic games. If athletes at that time already had it, how much more today when all the facilities for cooking and preparation can be done? It is all then a matter of getting into the habit and making it a lifestyle.