Your diet - what you eat and drink - can significantly impact health and exercise performance. If you are an active individual, you need to make sure you consume enough energy to maintain a healthy body weight for your level of activity. Most activities use a combination of fat and carbohydrate as energy sources. How hard and how long you work out, your level of fitness and your diet will affect the type of fuel your body uses. For short-term, high-intensity activities like sprinting, athletes rely mostly on carbohydrate for energy. During low-intensity exercises like walking, the body uses more fat for energy.
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Athletes
need to eat about 1,800 calories a day to get the vitamins and
minerals they need for good health and optimal performance. Since most
athletes eat more than this amount, vitamin and mineral supplements are
needed only in special situations. Athletes who follow vegetarian diets
or who avoid an entire group of foods (for example, never drink milk)
may need a supplement to make up for the vitamins and minerals not
being supplied by food.
A multivitamin-mineral pill that supplies 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) will provide the nutrients needed. An athlete who frequently cuts back on calories, especially below the 1,800 calorie level, is not only at risk for inadequate vitamin and mineral intake, but also may not be getting enough carbohydrate. Since vitamins and minerals do not provide energy, they cannot replace the energy provided by carbohydrates.
Active
individuals need more carbohydrate and protein than
sedentary individuals, and should not restrict fat intake too
severely. Keeping well-hydrated and replacing fluids lost
during exercise is also a key part of feeling good and
performing at your best. Before beginning a weight loss diet, an active
individual
needs to identify what constitutes a realistic healthy body
weight for his/her activity level. This decision should be
made based on past dieting experiences, type of activity
engaged in, the social setting around work and home,
genetics (family size and shape), health risk factors, and
psychological issues.
A healthy weight is one that can be realistically maintained, allows for positive advances in exercise performance, minimizes the risk of injury or illness, is consistent with long-term good health, and reduces the risk factors for chronic disease.
Maintaining fluid and electrolyte balance means that active individuals need to replace the water and electrolytes lost in sweat. This requires that active individuals, regardless of age, get plenty of water before exercise, drink fluids throughout exercise, and drink some more after exercising.
A good first goal of any active individual is to maintain adequate energy intake to assure that a healthy body weight is maintained. Although this seems like a simple task, there are many active individuals who find this difficult. For these individuals, a dietary plan that assures meals and snacks are not skipped will improve energy intake and help maintain weight. Finally, energy needs typically decrease with age, so even if activity levels do not change, the amount of energy required to maintain body weight will decrease. For this reason, body weight typically increases with age, even if activity levels remain constant.
When you eat is also important. Eating sensibly before exercise assures that there is enough energy to fuel your exercise. Eating after exercise will help refuel your body. We know that being well fed before exercise can improve performance, and that the post-exercise meal helps replace muscle glycogen and repair muscle tissue damage.
Depending on the sport, eating or using a sport drink during exercise can also improve performance and delay time to fatigue. Active individuals, who exercise more than once per day, may need to time eating around exercise, use sport drinks during exercise, and make sure you don't skip too many meals. Eating healthy is crucial to fueling your body for exercise. Are you ready to start shedding those extra pounds? The quickest way to lose weight - and keep it off - is with daily exercise and healthy eating!
If you are on your way to getting rid of fat and getting in shape fast - make sure you give your body enough of the proper nutrients. Eating healthy means making some simple choices. Skip the fast food and make your own healthy snacks. Try six smaller meals rather than three big ones.