What you eat before, during and after exercise can make or break your experience whether you’re heading out the door for a long run, bike ride with friends, or its race day no matter how fit and prepared you are. The longer or harder your training session is, the more important nutrition becomes.
Before Training:
Your pre training fuel has three goals to accomplish, those are:
Meeting these three goals listed above means eating the right foods at the right time. As a rule of thumb, if it has been 2 or more hours since you last ate you want a snack that is 1.3 calories per pound of body weight 30-45 minutes before training. This snack should include some carbohydrates but even more importantly protein. Aiming to get 15-20 grams of protein in before hard efforts.
During Training:
The goal of eating during training sessions, specifically carbohydrates is to keep blood sugar concentrations topped off so you have a steady stream of energy to keep going. You should use nutrition with any training session 75 minutes or longer.
Research suggests that 0.9 – 1.13 food calories per pound of body weight per hour of running OR 1.13 – 1.16 food calories per hour while cycling. The foods you are consuming should have a blend of simple sugars such as glucose, dextrose and sucrose. Make sure to read the labels of your sports nutrition products and avoid anything with fructose.
While carbohydrates are our main source of fuel during long training and racing events, we still want a little bit of protein in the system as well. Amino acids can provide up to 10% of your total energy during training sessions. If you don’t get enough protein through what you eat, your body will naturally take what it needs by breaking down your muscle. Which makes it harder to recover and make fitness improvements. You don’t need much protein, just about 5-10 grams of protein per hour. It helps a ton with longer and higher intensity training.
After Training:
Let’s start off with how to know if you need recovery fuel after your training session? The simple answer is, when you finish a really hard session that leaves you feeling like you have really done some good work and you’re feeling depleted. That’s when you know you need to put some fuel back into the system to help stop the breakdown of muscle and replenish your glycogen stores.
Now the question is what should you eat? As a woman, you need protein and you need it fast, freaky fast to protect those muscles and come back stronger.
If you are:
It’s even better if your protein contains 5-7 grams of BCAAs and is consumed within 30 minutes of your hard session because women return back to baseline way quicker than men. As a side note, the fitter you are, the smaller your window for recovery is. But remember to always have carbohydrates with your protein. They work like magic together to increase your glycogen storage rate, reduce inflammation and can boost immunity.
Carly and Tyler Guggemos built Organic Coaching in 2014 with a simple philosophy that works. The idea is to take what you have and grow it to get faster, fitter and stronger. And to do it with the time you have – not the time you wish you had.
For athletes who are ready to take their training to the next level while still thriving and succeeding in their professional and family life.
