Fueling For Success

What does it mean to eat healthy? Just eat vegetables, that is what we were taught right? Eating vegetables is not the best way to fuel for better performance or just a healthier life in general. I am going to give you some easy things to change that will have a huge impact on fueling your training for success. For starters, read those labels we want to be avoiding any and all seed oils. This includes only using olive oil in raw format and using tallow or real butter like ghee (if you don't present a dairy allergy) or avocado oil when you are cooking. Now, what do we cook you ask? Carbs are very important and should be implemented based on activity level. Simply put if you are working out carbs are the source of energy for the aerobic system.

One of the most important habits to implement is to eat protein! This can be in shake form, meat, or you can work in more bone broth into recipes. I cannot stress to you how important protein intake is. The rule of thumb is 1-1.25g per pound of bodyweight. Eating protein helps our bodies recover and gives us essential amino acids to fight chronic illness. Then we eat fats in moderation to help us feel full. Fats also help with anti-aging benefits as well as muscle repair. Interestingly enough it is actually super beneficial to have a little extra fat than what we might be comfortable carrying during training, this can aid in injury prevention.

Fasting: should we do it? should we avoid it? Fasting is so great to implement into training. Men should do it often and women should do it every once in a while. Fasting is a great tool for training as long as it does not compromise our hormones being balanced. This leads us into chatting about blood sugar and food timing. Food timing is just in the sense that you shouldn't eat breakfast at like 6am then not eat lunch until 12pm; this can cause your blood sugar to crash and then cortisol goes up and it just has no benefit for training or overall health. So make sure that if you are hungry either eat your lunch or have a protein or a low glycemic carb snack!

Now, back to the topic of vegetables. They are great and you should be eating them, but as a hard charging athlete we want to think about them in the right context. Anything that is high fiber or a vegetable should not be eaten within four hours of your training. That is how long it takes to digest, and we do not want to be in a state of digestion when we are trying to fight bears in training. First thing in the morning get that protein in, lunch is for fueling your workouts; then dinner is to eat in a way that is going to encourage recovery. Post workout get those carbs in while you are doing your cooldown (preferably drinkable EFP has some amazing Cluster Dextrin) and then after you finish your carbs get that protein shake in! This will signal to the body to come out of fight or flight and to prioritize digestion.

If you would like more info or this peaked your interest we would love to chat with you and have Nutrition Consolation appointments available. Just respond to this email to get that set up!

If you are injured or would like to optimize your recovery and improve performance and would like some professional help, book a phone consultation today!

P.S. We also provide sweat testing, running gait analysis, and VO2Max testing, all of which are super helpful in helping you achieve your fitness goals!

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