8 Powerful Diet Tips for High Performance Athletes
8 Powerful Diet Tips for High Performance Athletes
If you are a high performance athlete, then you have to keep up with your own demands in order to help you recover rapidly afterwards. It requires knowledge and planning to refuel your body with the right nutrients it needs. This is particularly true for basketball players, runners, soccer players or people who play other fast-paced sports. Here are 8 powerful diet tips for high performance athletes that you can apply to keep your body powered:
If you are a high performance athlete, then you have to keep up with your own demands in order to help you recover rapidly afterwards. It requires knowledge and planning to refuel your body with the right nutrients it needs. This is particularly true for basketball players, runners, soccer players or people who play other fast-paced sports. Here are 8 powerful diet tips for high performance athletes that you can apply to keep your body powered:
1. Drink Plenty Of Fluids During The Day
Because high intensity activities promote your body to sweat, dehydration can happen. Thus, you had better drink a lot of water as well as sports drinks throughout the day. You should not just drink when you are thirsty because it is when your body is already dehydrated.
2. Consume More Carbohydrates
If you are a high performance athlete, carbohydrate will help give your body the essential energy to work out for more than one hour. Consuming carbohydrates both in and around your training session will keep your body performing at its best.
Going for carbohydrates does not mean that you have to eat a large amount of pasta or bread. Instead, you can always eat healthy carbohydrates like fruits and vegetables whole grains and nuts. However, you had better limit your consumption of refined grains or sugars like sugary cereals, bagels and white breads. You will harness more benefits from wholegrain products. Eating some carbs after your training session will also boost your immune system and speed up your recovery so you will be properly prepared for your upcoming workout.
3. Take More Protein
Despite protein does not have the ability to give essential energy to your body, it can build muscle mass. Active bodies require protein to support growth and repair the hardworking muscles. Therefore, a powerful diet tip for people doing workouts at a high intensity level is to spread high-quality protein foods like fish, lean meats, eggs and nuts throughout the day. Nonetheless, you should not overindulge yourself since too much protein could put a strain on your kidneys. The best tip is to use 20 to 30 grams of a lean protein as your meal’s anchor.
4. Apply Right Nutrient Timing
If you eat light in the first part of your day, your sympathetic nervous system will be thankful for it. Because the sympathetic nervous system stays active, you will be in fight-or-flight mode. In the past, this mechanism was thought to help human beings stay active and alert whilst hunting. Now, you could reap the benefit of this hunger to apply whenever you need to be productive.
If you get a big meal in the early part of the day, your parasympathetic nervous system will be turned on. This state is just designed for relaxation and rest so your entire energy could support digestion. Therefore, if you want to focus and be productive throughout out the day, you had better leverage your own evolution and be hungry.
5. Eat A Variety Of Fruits And Vegetables
As a high performance athlete, you had better eat various fruits and vegetables for at least 5 servings a day. One serving is about a baseball’s size. Fruits and vegetables contain essential nutrients and energy which are beneficial for both training and recovery. Moreover, they are antioxidant-rich foods which aid you in combating illnesses like the flu or a cold.
5. Pay Attention To Food Safety
Having nausea, stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhea or any other food poisoning symptoms after eating foods will surely slow down your body. Thus, you should store snacks at appropriate temperatures in order to prevent spoilage. Keep yogurt, cheese, meat, salads containing mayonnaise and eggs in a fridge. The shelf-stable stuff like granola bars, nuts and whole fruits could be tossed in sport bags without having any problem.
6. Drink Extra Milk
Aside from plain water, people who are going to training sessions lasting more than one hour should drink more low-fat and fat-free milk. This is a smart way to keep their body well-hydrated and energized. Just one cup of milk contains 15-24 percent of protein that high performance athletes need daily. Furthermore, it delivers crucial nutrients like calcium, which is important for building strong bones, supporting muscle contract and transmitting nerve impulses, and potassium which is crucial for fluid balance.
7. Take Advantage of Berries
One of powerful nutrition tips for high performance athletes is eating further blueberries to accelerate recovery. This is a proven way to decrease muscle soreness , according to a research.
When you consume blueberries around your training sessions, you will have better immune and inflammation responses to the session. It means that you will experience better recovery and have less chance of getting illness. To harness blueberries’ benefits for recovery, you ought to eat 1 to 2 cups of blueberries every day.
8. Optimize Your Blood Glucose Levels
It is essential for athletes to optimize their blood glucose levels for better performance. Pay extra attention to the way you combine your meals so you can maximize your performance as well as quality of sleep.
A tip is to combine sources of fat, protein and fiber at every feeding. This will help your body use fat as the essential energy and preserve great carbohydrate stores.
On the other hand, because your sleep quality is improved, you will be able to recover more quickly during hard bouts of competition and training.
About the author:
Victoria Tan is a Health and Beauty expert with nearly 10 years of experience in Health Care industry. For more health care tips on healthy living, visit her at the website TrueRemedies.com. There, you will find posts on natural treatments, recipes, healthy foods, and so much more.