Post about "Nutrition"

Sports Nutrition That Will Improve Overall Sporting Performance

What is Sports Nutrition?

Sports nutrition plays a huge part in gaining the best sporting performance. If you play hockey, golf, football, tennis or whatever your chosen sport is, having the right nutritional balance is essential. There are many nutrients that can be got by eating the correct foods. Having the correct balance of vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates are essential part of having the proper nutrition health regime.

Try not to get nutrition and sports nutrition mixed up though as both are different. Being an athlete and participating in sports will require more nutrients as a way of keeping the energy levels up to ensure the athlete remains as peak fitness throughout there activities. Being an athlete is more strenuous on the body and that is the main reason why they will require more nutrients that the regular nutrition dieting advice.

During their sporting activities athletes will tend to lose a lot of fluids, everyone has heard of dehydration, which is one of the largest problems faced during sports. Losing fluids will cause you to tire much quicker than normal which will have a negative impact on sporting performance.

The reason why there are professional athlete is that they get paid to perform at their maximum on a daily basis. To do this it is essential that the body gets proper nutrition. It is vital to drink enough water, have a balanced diet by eating the proper foods and also get the proper nutritional intake that your body will need. Different sports will cause the body to require different nutrients. Nearly all professional athletes have a sports nutritionist who help in provide the correct diet for their sporting nutritional needs. Doing so will enable your body to consumes energy efficiently and will aid in overall performance.

In order to make the most of your sporting talents it is essential to have more power, endurance and strength. Only by getting the proper sports nutrition can this be done.

Having a balanced diet is essential and should be based on several different factors. Such as, the type of sports that you are participating in, age, physical condition and body size.

It is always best to consult with a doctor when changing your diet instead of just deciding one for yourself. To go one step further getting a sports nutritionist will help in giving you the correct diet that will suit your body and help in providing the perfect diet to complement your sport.

When exercising it is vital to remember that a lot of fluids will be lost. When you are working out in the gym, doing weights, running, it is easy to forget the fluid loss that you body is experiencing. That is probably the main reason why water is one of the most important parts of sports nutrition.

It makes up about sixty percent of your body weight and is involved in almost all of your bodily processes.

Your body cannot produce and store water, this is the main reason why it is important to replace all fluids that are lost during exercise. If you don’t then dehydration will have a huge part in damaging your athletic abilities. Taking part in sports will require you to consume much more water than eight glasses daily.

Carbohydrates are the most important fuel source. It provides a minimum of sixty to a maximum of seventy percent of our calories. Carbohydrates are found on almost all of the food you consume. Food rich in carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables, pastas, breads, cereals, rice and many more that are too many to mention.

The body converts all starches and sugars in carbohydrates to glucose. The main provider of energy in the body is glucose. That is why an active lifestyle requires more carbohydrates than usual. The body will also store glucose in the liver and muscles that will give your body a energy reserve. If this reserve is not used during sports then it will be more likely to turn into fat. The larger your carbohydrate intake the more energy you will have during sports. If your intake is to high it will have a negative effect as you will begin to increase in fat. Other energy sources include proteins and fats.

Foods that help in providing the most amount of protein would be, eggs, nuts, poultry, fish, meat, beans and dairy products. Proteins will supply about 15 to 20 percent of your daily calorie allowance. The main uses of proteins are in tissue and muscle building.

Benefit of a Sports Nutrition Plan

In sports, we all need a plan, whether it’s a training plan, a sports nutrition plan or a recovery plan. Either way we need to plan, planning helps us track progress, record numbers, and keeps us on the road to success. But an area that is far too often overlooked is an individual’s sports nutrition plan, this is because food is often just viewed as fuel, as long as we eat, and eat enough we will be fine and fully able to follow out the training plan that we have in place with our coach or mentor.For the individual that is involved in sport, or trains for a purpose, we need to highlight the advantages of a sports nutrition plan. Without a plan we are setting ourselves up to fail far too readily. It’s just the same as your training plan, you need to know what to eat, when and where, just as much as you when you need to train, what you need to train and at what stage in the week. It’s all down to a fine tuning process, without a sports nutrition plan you will not know what foods to eat, when, how and in what quantities.Many people that are involved in competitive sport are genetically gifted and have often found that they can eat what they like and still play well to a high standard. But are we not always limiting potential this way? Do we ever realise our true potential without always looking at every angle we can improve on. Some people train for years just to knock a fraction of a second off their time, and this is only done through looking at every angle that can be improved upon. This is the exact reason we should always look to implement an intelligent sports nutrition plan, a blueprint for maximising energy and recovery. If we maximise recovery and our energy levels then we can train more often, and harder, which over time will lead to even greater increases in performance. So get a sport nutrition plan and take out the guess work.Having a sports nutrition plan will empower you to choose the right carbohydrates at the right time, the right proteins at the right time, and when to cycle fat quantities in and out of your meals to ensure we get all the benefits of all the major macro-nutrients. A sports nutrition plan will also ensure that we cover all the bases in terms of micro-nutrients. It is common for people to focus on eating the same foods day in day out, which over time might lead us to develop deficiencies with certain vitamins and minerals, with a sports nutrition plan we will know how to add variety into a diet and still keep it tasty, fun and interesting.Having a sports nutrition plan might also make your diet seem more fun, allowing and forcing you to experiment with certain foods and expand your repertoire when cooking meals. When we eat for our sport and training, food can often become a chore; hopefully having a plan to follow will allow you to keep eating and enjoying the process.