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Showing posts from August 9, 2015

All-day nutrition tips for athletes: Dinner

DINNER Now that I have discussed my breakfast  and  lunch tips , it's time for dinner!! First off, before discussing my tips, I want to preface by saying that my all-day nutrition tips are designed to help you fuel smarter, eat healthier and develop or maintain a healthy (or healthier) relationship with food and your body. There are no rules or guidelines as to when to eat or even exactly what to eat. There are no bad foods to avoid or even a list of clean foods to eat. My goal is to help athletes fuel and eat smarter all in an effort to maintain a healthy body composition, keep the body in good health and of course, boost fitness and perform amazingly well on race day!! -Dinner is often the "Achilles heal" of most people in our society. For a variety of reasons like being tired and hungry, wanting food fast, feeling too busy or not liking/wanting to cook, sitting down at the table to a home-cooked meal is not an every day occurrence for many. But for athletes, wi...

All-day nutrition tips for athletes: Lunch

LUNCH Now that I covered my  Breakfast Tips , it's time for lunch! -Regardless if you love lunch foods or not, lunch is an important meal of your day as an athlete. Unlike breakfast which is super important as it kick-starts your day (and helps you refuel from your morning workout), lunch is a prime opportunity to nourish your body and fill in some nutritional gaps between breakfast and dinner. Whereas a high fiber, high fat and/or high protein meal is not in the ideal composition from a "fueling" perspective in the morning or evening if a workout precedes the meal, lunch is a great opportunity to fill in the nutritional gaps that may occur throughout the day in an athlete's diet. I highly suggest to emphasize a large salad for your lunch and to make your lunch very "plant strong." -Many athletes eat lunch and then feel hungry just an hour later. This starts an afternoon of trying to mask hunger with unhealthy methods (drinking coffee or diet coke,...

All-day nutrition tips for athletes: Breakfast

Would it surprise you to hear that many athletes express that they are too busy to eat? Yes - too busy to eat! I am a very busy person but there is always time to eat. And plus, food is my fuel. How can I expect my body to perform well in training and throughout the day if I do not make time to nourish it?  I wanted to share a few of my nutrition tips to help with meal planning, nourishing and fueling your body throughout the day so that you can set yourself up for great health and great performances. BREAKFAST -For the athlete who works out in the morning, there are two priorities. First, you need to focus on what you will consume before/during/after your workout. I call this your "sport nutrition". Next you need to plan what you will eat post workout for your post workout meal (or breakfast). Also, do not neglect your hydration in the form of sport drinks (during), water (before/during/after) and electrolytes (during/after). -Keep your morning...

It's ok to make mistakes: reflect, learn and move on

You've probably heard the expression: Hope for the best and plan for the worst.  Sometimes on race day, everything comes together perfectly and sometimes, well, it seems like a fight just to keep your body moving in a forward direction.  No matter how prepared you feel going into a race, there is absolutely no way to know how your body will respond to the course, weather, nutrition or effort. So instead of stressing about things out of your control, embrace the unknowns!  This is all part of being an athlete and the unknowns make race day so exhilarating. That is, if you choose to accept the obstacles instead of complaining (or settling for a DNF) when things do not go how you planned. Every athlete makes mistakes on race day. Struggles are not limited to age group athletes. All athletes, of all levels, experience battles with the mind and body in almost every race.  Even if you think a race is going perfectly, it is really your ability t...

9 weeks out 'til Kona - "all-in!"

This past weekend included a lot of training, which followed 5 previous days of training (with Monday/Friday being recovery days). With 9 weeks left until the 2015 IM World Championship, I finally experienced my first week of Ironman training and included a lot of swimming, biking and running! If I were to reflect back on the past 10 months of training, when I started an 8-week plan to build my foundation  back in November, a part of me was not fully committed to my training. I was still following my training and I was not slacking on strength training or key workouts but I never found myself "all-in" at any point in my training over the past 10 months.  This was quite evident as I was gearing up for my first half IM of the season, at  Challenge Knoxville . I felt strong and healthy but I questioned my why as to why I was racing. I love competition and I love training but some part of me wasn't "all-in". Four weeks later, at  Challenge Williamsburg...