Nutrition can be a touchy subject for some athletes, especially endurance athletes. The idea of changing things up from a training standpoint can be terrifying, but when changing things from a nutrition standpoint, it's simply unheard of. However, I think once any athlete looks at their diet there will almost always be some concessions that can be made. The book Once a Runner has a famous quote that, I believe, sums up the attitude of many endurance athletes, "If the fire is hot enough, it'll burn anything". Implying that as long as you train your ass off you can eat whatever you want and not worry about negative health effects. While it's true that if you burn enough calories, you won't gain weight, and you can actually run the best race of your life even if you eat Mcdonald's every day for a month (See this link: http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/Illinois-marathon-runner-only-eats-McDonalds-as-he-trains-for-his-next-race-031011) there is more to nutrition than calories-in/calories-out.
Quality of diet is not the whole ball game when it comes to becoming a better athlete, but it can be a very important piece of the puzzle and, in fact, when the quality of food you eat is good, you get to eat more of it. So what constitutes high quality food? The types of foods that provide sufficient nutrients without causing an inflammatory response from your body, and that will not overload you with excess, unnecessary calories. That was a mouthful (pun somewhat intended). Let's break that statement down.
Sufficient nutrients: As a human the functions of the body are fueled by the food that is ingested. The more work you do (physical activity) the more energy you need (caloric intake). If only it were that simple. If you expend 2,000 calories/day, in theory, you could function just fine taking in 2,000 calories of strawberry rhubarb pie. Unfortunately, strawberry rhubarb pie does not contain the necessary amount of protein required to sustain high intensity activity. Eventually, performance and health in general would begin to decline. The term "balanced diet" is used to describe proper nutrition as it involves taking in all of the macro and micro nutrients necessary for optimum health and performance. Thus, in order to provide an athlete with the sufficient nutrients for peak performance and health, drawing nutrients from several different sources will ensure that all nutrient needs are met.
Inflammatory Response: Most athletes are familiar with inflammation as a concept. The most acute and understandable source of inflammation is injury (the swelling of a sprain involves inflammation of the tissues in the ankle). Inflammation can be brought on by several different causes, one of which is food. Inflammatory foods are the foods that your body does not process well, and which cause tissues to become inflamed. Usually, inflammation occurs in the internal tissues and organs, but can often manifest itself in muscular tissues. Studies on diet with rheumatoid arthritis patients have shown that anti-inflammatory diets can relieve much of the inflammation of RA. More recent studies are beginning to show that athletes can also be affected by inflammatory responses to diet. Foods that can cause inflammation: Gluten, cheese, low-grade meat, refined sugar, refined flower, omega-6 fatty acids.
Excess, unnecessary calories: Excess calories are those calories that go beyond the caloric needs of the day and are most often found in foods that are not nutrient dense. Interestingly enough, those foods that are not dense in nutrients, but contain excessive calories are often those that are also inflammatory foods. Pastas, breads, desserts, alcohol and several other foods contain plenty of calories, but are low in nutritous content. It's true, pasta contains many carbohydrates but serving sizes in the US often contain more than enough carbohydrates to fulfill a day's needs, but are difficult to digest, dehydrate athletes, and provide very few vitamins or minerals.
Figuring out what to eat can be difficult. Making a drastic diet change can be nearly impossible. The easiest place to start in making a positive nutritious change is in diet quality. When you eat high quality foods (lean meats, fruits, vegetables) you get to eat more of them with few negative results. As you begin to dial in your nutrition as an athlete there will be small nuances that make big differences. Finding those small details can take a long time, and involve a lot of trial and error, but you can make a simple positive change immediately by improving the quality of foods you eat.
Base Phase Workout:
45 minute run easy and consistent (if you live near hills, run them)
MWOD Afterwards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ro45mUvQzo&feature=player_embedded
Then, 20 push ups (Unbroken)
Post distance run, feelings in the MWOD
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