EK: It is well established that the preferred fuel for working muscles and neurons, is glucose, a carbohydrate molecule. Protein-rich foods are also of great value, and healthful sources of fats are valuable too. In terms of hindering performance, there are a number of considerations: How close to exercise is the food being consumed?

What type of exercise is going to happen and at what level of intensity? Is there a break between events during the day? In general, people should avoid eating too close to exercise to avoid an upset stomach or diarrhea—either of those would certainly hinder performance. Apart from that, if the athlete is generally well nourished and well trained, their pre-event meal may be more a matter of habit and something they know will work for them.

EK: Following intensive exercise, recovery is the priority. We can replace important sources of energy and the support molecules that allow us to use the energy vitamins and minerals.

Some athletes enjoy protein shakes or smoothies after a session; my advice is to make sure they have a bagel, or sandwich, or fruit to go with that. EK: There are plenty of myths, especially around sports supplements. Find more content for eating well here. Explore more resources, recipes, and guides for making healthy meals easy here.

Toggle navigation. UW Home Directories Calendar Libraries Maps My UW Search the UW. Toggle navigation The Whole U. So, what should we eat to perform better? How much should we eat, when, and why? THE WHOLE U: What is performance nutrition? TWU: Where should people start when beginning to think about how what they eat contributes to performance?

TWU: Are there any recommended guidelines for hydration and exercise? How much to hydrate, how close to exercise, hydrating during, etc.? TWU: What are some snacks that energize the body when we feel tired during the day? Thus, more research is needed to determine its specific impact on performance.

Plant-based diets are also adopted by many athletes due to ethical or health-conscious reasons. This choice is supported by the literature , which suggests that vegetarian and vegan athletes perform just as well in terms of endurance and strength as their omnivorous counterparts.

Following a plant-based diet can have numerous health benefits. Plant-based protein sources, such as tofu, lentils, and beans, have been found to improve circulation, reduce inflammation, lower oxidative stress, promote a healthy gut microbiome, enhance glycogen stores, and support leaner body weights.

However, due to the restrictions of these dietary patterns, following them without proper planning may lead to nutritional deficiencies , such as protein, vitamins B12 and D, iron, zinc, calcium, total calories, and iodine. These deficiencies may affect performance, recovery, and bone health.

In order to maximize a plant-based diet for training and competition, athletes may want to consult with a sports dietitian to ensure adequate nutrient intake and to get well-balanced examples of nutritionally fulfilling meals. Intermittent fasting, with its varying protocols, involves limiting the time window for eating during the day.

This dietary pattern might not be suitable for athletes given their training schedules or the nutrition to fuel performance. As a result, the potential risks may outweigh the benefits. Limited eating windows may be helpful for weight loss or maintaining a strict weight class, but it can also lead to low energy availability and actually harm performance and overall health.

The pressure to maintain a low body weight for athletics can lead to restrictive diets or even clinical eating disorders, affecting both physical and mental health. These include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and orthorexia.

Athletes , especially those in aesthetics-focused sports such as gymnastics, dance, and ice skating, have the highest rates of disordered eating and eating disorders.

These eating patterns can weaken muscles, cause fatigue, and lead to injuries and complications like anemia and osteoporosis. Restrictive diets like ketogenic, plant-based, or intermittent fasting might appeal to athletes with disordered eating tendencies.

Thus, athletes should carefully assess their motivations for diet changes and consult professionals to ensure their nutritional needs are met. To summarize, the researchers found that the Mediterranean diet has the most benefits for athletes regarding recovery and performance.

Low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets show no harm to athletic performance; however, the non-ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets that emphasize protein intake might be more sustainable for the energy demands of athletics.

Vegans and vegetarians are at high risk for nutrient deficiencies, especially in nutrients essential for athletic recovery and muscle maintenance. Intermittent fasting may aid weight loss but could hamper athletic performance in endurance and aerobic sports.

For any dietary intervention, the reasoning for the change should be closely monitored by the athlete and their healthcare team to ensure disordered eating is not a risk. Restricting the type and amount of food an athlete consumes can severely impact performance and overall well-being.

The Mediterranean diet is abundant in foods that support the high energy demands of athletes and promote recovery. However, no one diet is universally recommended for athletes , and any dietary changes should be done in collaboration with healthcare professionals to ensure maintenance of overall health.

Mediterranean Diet The Mediterranean diet, rich in whole grains, unsaturated fats, lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables, is consistently associated with improved health and performance for athletes.

Ketogenic Diet The ketogenic diet restricts the consumption of carbohydrates and protein to boost the use of fat as an energy source, thus improving weight loss and potentially athletic performance.

Low-Carbohydrate Diet People often think that Ketogenic and Low-Carbohydrate diets are the same. Plant-Based Diet Plant-based diets are also adopted by many athletes due to ethical or health-conscious reasons. Disordered Eating The pressure to maintain a low body weight for athletics can lead to restrictive diets or even clinical eating disorders, affecting both physical and mental health.

During longer exercise, your body primarily uses your glycogen stores, but depending on how long the activity lasts, your body will also utilize fats stored in your body to fuel performance. Fat is an important source of energy used to fuel longer exercise and endurance activities, such as hiking, cycling, and long-distance running or swimming.

Eating a diet that is too low in dietary fat may decrease athletic performance and cause other health problems, such as deficiencies of certain vitamins, which require fat to be absorbed.

Heart-healthy sources of fat include avocados, salmon, nuts and nut butters, and olive oils. Protein is needed for your body to build and repair muscles. Small amounts of protein may also be used for energy. Protein can be found in lean meats like chicken and turkey, beans, tofu, eggs, and dairy products such as Greek yogurt, cheese, and milk.

Vitamins and minerals are not sources of energy, but they have many important functions in the body. For example, vitamin D and calcium are needed for strong bones, and iron is needed for blood cells to carry oxygen throughout your body. Certain minerals, like potassium, calcium, and sodium are called electrolytes.

They are important during exercise because they have an effect on the amount of water in your body and on how your muscles work. Athletes should eat a balanced diet with a variety of foods to make sure they get enough vitamins and minerals. It is fine to take a regular multivitamin, but supplements with high doses of vitamins and minerals do not improve performance and may actually be harmful.

Water is essential to keep you hydrated. When you are physically active, dehydration is not only dangerous, but can also keep you from performing your best. In order to stay hydrated, keep a water bottle with you and drink throughout the day. Carbohydrate loading is a technique used to increase the amount of glycogen in muscles.

It involves eating extra carbohydrates during the week before a competition, while at the same time cutting back on your training. Although some extra protein is needed to build muscle, most people get plenty of protein from food.

Eating enough calories especially from carbohydrates! is actually more important for building muscle than having extra protein. It depends. There are many different energy bars you can buy. Foods that have some carbohydrate and protein in them such as yogurt, cheese and crackers, or peanut butter and fruit are typically just as good if not better and may cost less than energy bars.

Athletes need more fluids than non-athletes because of additional sweat loss from exercise. Do not wait until you are thirsty to start drinking water, because thirst means that you are starting to dehydrate. Remember to drink even more in hot and humid weather. Before exercise: The goal of drinking fluids before exercise is to be well hydrated before you are physically active.

In general, teens should drink oz This will spare muscle glycogen and prolong the onset of fatigue. Eating during training that is longer than 90 minutes is also a good idea, especially if it is a particularly intense session. These carbohydrates will enter the bloodstream and the muscle, maintaining your blood sugar and giving the muscle a continuous source of energy.

If you fail to eat after about two hours of intense aerobic exercise, your performance will start to gradually decline until the dreaded bonk occurs. When blood sugar drops, your body will burn through its remaining muscle glycogen rapidly. Then, a few nasty things will happen:.

The longer and harder the session is, the more carbohydrates you need. Consuming plenty of calories during training will also help you to meet caloric requirements for the day and enhance recovery for the next bout of exercise.

Finally, remember that training is a catabolic process that causes damage to your body. Providing plenty of calories immediately after training will give your body the energy it needs to begin the repair process quickly and help you recover faster. Carbohydrates and proteins signal hormones in your body that will tell it to begin the repair process.

Without a post-workout meal, this response will be impaired; you will struggle to fully recover. Your muscles will also be depleted of glycogen.

Remember that during the recovery window immediately following training, you will be able to synthesize new muscle glycogen more effectively. The rest of the day, your body still needs carbs to replenish, but you do not want to cause a spike in blood sugar. Focus on fiber-rich, complex carbs rather than simple carb sources for your other meals of the day.

Good examples would be fruits, vegetables, sweet potatoes, brown rice, and quinoa. This is also a good time to consume some lean protein and healthy fats. There has been increasing popularity of low-carb and ketogenic diets within the sports world recently. They have been touted as a great way to get lean and improve your performance.

However, unless you are an ultra-endurance athlete, it is unlikely you will find any benefit from low-carb training. Some low-carb training protocols have been shown to increase levels of mitochondria, but performance improvements remain equivocal.

These low-carb protocols can be difficult to properly implement and may have negative implications that can offset any potential performance gains.

However, most are far better off fueling for optimal performance with a balanced carbohydrate-based diet. Amateurs especially tend to have a lot of room for improvement that can only be realized through continual training.

The demands of this training are best met with proper fueling rather than experimental diets. To summarize, low-carbohydrate training is only a good idea if your training demands longer and more steady aerobic sessions.

But if you are training for explosive, high-intensity events such as criteriums, time trials, and road races common in the amateur scene, low carb training is not a good idea. These sorts of efforts require a quick energy source such as carbohydrates.

Going into these training sessions and races with optimal glycogen levels will allow you to recruit all your muscles to their full capacity and put out the maximum amount of power. Endurance sports burn a lot of calories. Many athletes find it beneficial to track calories to ensure they are refueling enough.

Restricting calories during training, whether voluntarily or accidentally, will only put your body into chronic catabolic state, impairing the replenishment of glycogen reserves.

A good first step is to eat your normal diet for one week during training, and log the calories. These strategies will allow you to get the most out of every training session.

Training can be hard, so make sure that you are making the most of your time and effort by giving your body what it needs to perform.

Give your body the right stuff, and it will give back to you! Brian McBonk Maximus Watts Brian often comes home from his training rides feeling empty. Max has plenty of energy to finish the majority of his training rides feeling like he could keep going if he wanted.

Brian finishes hard training sessions feeling like it may be hard to recover enough for another session the next day.