Here’s what you should eat to get the most out of your workout

If you want to improve your personal best in your next races or if you want to train more and better, we give you the key to get the peak performance of your body, nutrition. It has been scientifically proven that preparing for marathons or popular races is more than going out for a run or doing a series. Everything related to physical preparation will be key to increase our chances of success. If the body has the best possible fuel, it will last even faster. In this article, prepared using the nutritionist and runner guidelines of the Euskadi Mountain Racing Team, Garazi Abasolo (EUS00484)*, we give you the keys so that your pre- and post-competition diet is optimal.

Before starting with the guidelines, we should mention the four main pillars of performance:

• Training
• Nutrition
• Rest
• Emotional health

If we take care of these four factors, our performance will increase fast. To make the nutrition strategy, it is key to know how to choose the best food before and after to practice the proper assimilation of sessions. This will generate high-quality training that allows us to run more and with better sensations and recovery will be faster and less likely to have an injury.

The first thing to remember is the importance of the foods we should eat pre and post training varies depending on frequency and the intensity of each runner’s routine. Someone who trains 2-3 days a week, with recovery days in between, is not the same as someone who trains 4-5 days a week and also does double sessions. It’s also not the same as jogging 20′, running on the track with changes in speed or doing long runs for several hours. Furthermore, the food will be different Depends on tolerance of humans in these foods at stomach level. In this article, we will give the best advice given by a registered nutritionist and we recommend going to a professional who can give us a personalized follow-up.

Before exercising
The

The purpose of our diet before training is to give the body enough energy to follow the schedule and avoid gastrointestinal problems. To do this we need to get:

• Foods that are easy to digest.
• Diet low in fat, protein and fiber (use simple culinary techniques for cooking: boiling, grilling, steaming… and avoiding large amounts of fruits and vegetables, whole foods and prioritizing refined cereal in this case).
• Allow some time to pass before going out to practice. It depends a lot on the type of food and the tolerance of each person. Recommended from 1 hour to 3 hours.

Our diet should include:

• Carbohydrates: to replenish glycogen stores and have enough energy to perform the exercise. Includes foods such as: fruits, cereals, rice, potatoes, pasta…
• Water or liquid (juice, infusion or sports drink): to ensure proper hydration, otherwise performance may decrease.
• Caffeine consumption taken 30′-1h before training was assessed. It can be taken in capsules as a supplement or with caffeinated beverages such as coffee, tea or soft drinks. In any case, it depends on the time of training (it is better not to drink caffeine if we train in the afternoon, because it will affect sleep and recovery).

Food examples:

• Breakfast or Snack:
• Toasts: White bread with jam or quince
• Bowl: Yogurt with cereals and blueberries.
• Oatmeal porridge with honey and banana.
• Main course: Pasta with green sprouts, cherry tomatoes and tuna /or/ rice with tomatoes and eggs.

If training is in the afternoon and we don’t have much time between snacking and going out for a run, we can eat a big meal. carbohydrates -mentioned above- and then eat a fruit or a handful of dates before going out, because they will give us easily absorbed energy.

After exercise
The

Do you know the 4 Rs of recovery?

• Rehydrate the fluid lost during the session. Drink water or liquids: juice, infusion or sports drink.
• Replenish glycogen (energy) stores with foods rich in carbohydrates: fruits, cereals, tubers or bread.
• Repair damaged muscle tissue with good quality protein foods: eggs, fish, lean meats, legumes, dairy products or nuts.
• Rest is not a diet, but it is key to performance and health. You need to sleep enough hours and quality sleep, for proper recovery.

Eating after exercise will be very important when training becomes very demanding or when we have another session scheduled for some time later, for example, on double session days or a training session in the afternoon and the next day in the morning. In the case of softer sessions or if the next training we have is in a few days, we will recover both muscle and glycogen with the foods we eat during the day and rest.

Food examples:

• Breakfast or Snack:
• Pancakes: Milk, oatmeal and eggs
• Bowl: Whipped fresh cheese with fruit and cocoa /or/ Natural yogurt with nuts
• Cottage cheese toast with honey
• French omelet with cherry tomatoes
• Shake: whey protein
• Main Meal:
• Seafood paella
• Chicken with baked potatoes
• Chickpea salad
• cod empedrat

Finally, it is worth mentioning that it is not only about what you eat before and after training, but about everything Foods What we do during the week. As always, every rule should personalized, adapted to each person’s training, taste, schedule and tolerance. We need to make the four main pillars of performance (training, nutrition, rest and emotional health) part of our Lifestyle like runners. We encourage you to try these tips and share your experience in the comments section of this article.

* Garazi Abasolo is a registered nutritionist EUS00484, graduated in Human Nutrition and Dietetics (University of the Basque Country) and Master in Nutrition for Physical Activity and Sports (University of Barcelona).