Sports Nutrition

We hear a lot about carbohydrates today.  Often, they are called bad and unhealthy.  Yet, this is not true.

Go back to an analogy of the team.  As a team, nutrients work together but if you take one away or lessen the amount you eat of it, you drastically lessen the quality of the rest of the team.

In this case, you need to realize that it is necessary for your body to have the carbohydrates that it needs to power through your body’s demands.  Carbohydrates are nothing short of essential.

As you will learn here and throughout this ebook, the best thing that you can do is to provide your body with the right type of food.  So, while we say carbohydrates are good, that does not mean that any carbohydrate are good.

You should always look for whole grains when it comes to carbohydrates and you should look for things that are not full of sugars, bad fats and processed foods.

Did that just end your food tastes?  It shouldn’t.

The Role Of Carbs

As part of a balanced diet, carbohydrates are a necessary part, but what do they do to your body when it comes to sports nutrition? 

In the world of sports nutrition, carbohydrates play a large role.  They are necessary because they provide an essential source of foods for your nutrition.  If you look back at your food pyramid, you will notice that you are supposed to consume 11 servings per day of grains. 

Grains make up most of your carbohydrate intake, but that is not all.  In fact, you will intake carbohydrates when you eat fruits, vegetables and other foods as well.  Most commonly, starch foods will contain mostly carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates should be consumed at 65 to 70 percent of your body’s calories!

How They Effect Your Body

Carbohydrates are necessary for the production of energy in your body. 

• The body will take carbohydrates and convent them to sugars for easy consumption.
• The starch in carbohydrates is used for energy in the form of glucose (the sugar) to power the body through exercises.
• Carbohydrates are also stored in your liver as well as in the muscle tissues throughout your body.  This is called glycogen.
• Carbohydrates give you a high power boost of energy for a short time period.
• When the body does run out of carbohydrates in this type of fuel, it will then burn other elements including fat and then it will go to protein to use for energy output.
• When your body goes to fat usage for energy, the level of performance you get will drop.
• When the body goes from fat to protein, it is beginning to take apart muscle mass which is counteractive and therefore will cause performance to further drop significantly.
• Not enough carbohydrates when you begin to exercise, play your game, or physically exert yourself and your body will resort to turning to stored fat and stored protein.
• Do not exercise heavily for more than 60 minutes without consuming any carbohydrates. 
• Do not do anything high intensity too much without any carbohydrates available to power your body through fuel.
• Keep the amount of events, games, or physical exertions for one day or several days, minimal or, add additional carbohydrates to your diet during this very intense period.

Points To Remember

There are two things that you need to remember when it comes to carbohydrates:

• Eat quite a few carbohydrate foods for the several days before your event, heavy exercise routine, your exercising routine or any other time in which you will need lots of energy available.  This will help to load your muscles with glycogen:  fuel for your body’s needs.
• If you will be participating in a high intensity, long term event or several events over a short period of time or other instances where you will need to burn energy for an extended period of time, replenish your carbohydrates as you go.  You can do this with fruit juice or through carbohydrate drinks like the ones we talked about earlier.

Carbohydrate Loading:  Good Or Bad For You?

If you are considering carbohydrate loading, which is the method of adding additional carbohydrates to your diet prior to a race, event or competition, you need to look at what your needs are for that event as well as what your physical condition is for it.

The goal of carbohydrate loading, which is also known as glycogen loading, is quite straight forward.  Remember how we said that your body takes carbohydrates and breaks them down into glycogen?

Glycogen is then stored in your muscles as well as in your liver.  When your body needs to access reserved or stored carbohydrates, it will go to the stored glycogen first before it attempts to break down fats and proteins.

When you are carbohydrate loading, you are packing your liver and muscles full of glycogen to allow your body to have those reserves full and readily accessible to your body when the time does come.

It can be quite helpful to an athlete to have glycogen ready to go, but it should be done effectively and with good sources of carbohydrates.

How To Use Carbohydrate Loading

If you would like to see the benefits of carbohydrate loading, you will want to consider this.

• Several days before you will need to use the stored glycogen for your race or competition, eat a diet that is rich in protein, high in fat and low in carbohydrates.    
• This is accompanied by the intense training workouts you are probably doing to get ready and in shape for your competition.
• This will deplete the body’s reserves of glycogen, something that needs to be done first.
• Now that it is nearly depleted, two to three days before your event, you will be ready to carbohydrate load your body.  Eat a very high amount of carbohydrates during this period of time.  This should be foods from the grain group.
• You should not be doing any type of extraneous exercising during this period of time.  You do not want the body to burn through those stored glycogen carbohydrates.  It also gives your body the ability to repair damage from the last workouts to enable you to work harder on the day of the event.

When it comes to this type of activity, really take the time to learn if you need to use it.  You should not need to use carbohydrate loading unless you need your endurance level to remain high for an extended amount of time, such as in a long running race or in a bike race. 

You should also realize that you probably will not do well in your high protein phase of this carbohydrate session. 

Finally, most athletes will eat an overall high amount of carbohydrates during their exercise regimens as it is the fuel your body needs. 

But this routine for carbohydrate loading should only be done as preparation for high intensity, long events, not as a regular routine.