You are what you eat!

Catching up with the BBC guy training for his 120 mile cycle ride. There's some really useful comments on sports nutrition posted to the article...see here. I particularly like the fact that there's a website called flapjackrecipe.com! :-)

Here's some of my experience with eating proper for sport.

Discovering Nutrition!

My first encounter with basic sports nutrition was when I used to play lunchtime 5-a-side when I'd hit the "brick wall" after about half an hour. Then I noticed that if I ate lunch early, BEFORE I played, I was OK. So I took to doing that. I also discovered flapjack then...if I didn't have time to eat lunch before a I went out to play a big slab of oats always did the trick.

Upping the workload

Then I moved to Swindon and started cycling to work. Only 4 miles each way but boy, I was hungry as a horse all day! I started munching cereal bars, which I guess are glorified flapjacks with lots of additives. They really fill a whole though and don't seem to be that unhealthy or...like some "energy foods"...all that disgusting. I also have a big bowl of oaty cereal before I go out. Porridge, frankly, sucks!

Long rides and recovery

I also notice that after a long ride I really need something to recover. My body craves various things at that point but basically I just cram as much sugar and water in as I can. Apple Lucozade is particularly yummy and not too sweet. Apparently you need to get a mix of carbs, fat and protein. But hey, I'm still learning.

Key facts seem to be:

• eat little and often
• keep carbs up
• take good food (oats, bananas, etc) when you're out exercising
• have regular intake of water
• make sure you eat well to recover too
  

In this case, you really are what you eat and if you start feeling really hungry because you're exercising more do take some advice on it. Just cramming more won't necessarily help.