Nutrition

Tired of shelling out $1.00+ per bottle of your favorite sport drink?  Although that may not seem like much, it adds up quickly.  You can easily spend $10.00 a week on something you can easily make with household ingredients.

Not that you should never buy a commercial sport drink; there are times when grabbing a bottle of Gatorade at a convenience store is, well, convenient.  And it’s a good idea to practice long runs and rides with whatever your A race will be providing at aid stations.

Quick: which food has the most antioxidants:

• apples
• whole wheat bread
• popcorn
• broccoli

If you said popcorn, you were right! Recent research by Dr. Joe Vinson reveals that popcorn has more "polyphenols" than most fruits or vegetables.

Polyphenols are known for their role in preventing many degenerative diseases, especially cardiovascular disease and some cancers. They may also reduce some of the oxidative damage caused by strenuous exercise, which aids the recovery process.

Your alarm goes off at 5:00 AM (or earlier) and you have 30 mins to gulp down coffee, get your gear ready, and get out the door to swim, bike, or run. The 64 million dollar question is: should you eat and if so, what should you eat?

The quick answer is yes, you should eat something but what (and how much) you eat depends on several things.

One of my clients is training for Ironman Arizona and recently he said "as soon as I get my nutrition dialed in, I'm ready to go".

When I asked him what "dialed in" meant to him, he stuttered and said "well, its where you tell me what to eat, isn't it?"

Well, sort of.

During my facebook chatter with you, several reached out regarding a statement I made that I don't use (much) of gels, powders and goos.  How could that be?  We, as multi-sport competitors are indoctrinated on the consumption of these things that we would probably NEVER inhale...... except for training and the race.  

If you’ve been working out for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly heard about recovery drinks and snacks. But why do we need them? And who needs them? And most importantly, what are they?

For most athletes, it’s not hard to see why we need recovery nutrition. After all, if you’ve ever hobbled around the day after a hard workout because your muscles and joints were stiff and sore, you know that you depleted your body of something. And that depletion can really wreck your plans for a PR if you don’t do something about it.

1.  Focus on high quality carbs - we spend more time indoors this time of year, which often leads to more snacking, and most processed snack foods are made from refined flour which has very little fiber and nutritional value. These snacks rarely satisfy hunger so we end up eating more, ratcheting up our total caloric intake and adding another inch to our waistline.