Every athlete and fitness enthusiast will have intentional rest or active recovery days built into the training plan. Right now you may be experiencing a week (or more) long break from training to celebrate your well-deserved off-season.
Recovery (or rest) is important to your athletic development as it gives the body time to adapt to the stressors of exercise and to rejuvinate the mind.
As it relates to nutrition, recovery also allows the body to replenish energy stores and repair damaged tissues. What you eat (or don't eat) on your rest day or during the off-season will impact your health.
It’s common for athletes to dramatically cut calories or avoid carbohydrates for fear of gaining weight when energy expenditure is low. Or the opposite occurs - a day off from training is seen as a day to eat foods normally avoided for health, body composition and/or performance reasons (aka cheat day).
Many athletes struggle so much with rest that the body never receives an intentional break from training/exercise.
Regardless how you much or little you enjoy your time away from training, unhealthy lifestyle habits may actually hinder your athletic development and set you up for a setback. Therefore, consider your rest day as a growth day – fuel and nourish your body to become a stronger, fitter and healthier athlete.
Because sports that include heavy lifting, endurance activity and all-out efforts can induce excessive inflammation, deplete glycogen stores and damage tissues and muscles, a break from training may be the only opportunity to strategically consume the right type of foods to help you take your fitness to the next level or return your body back to optimum health.
As it relates to nutrition during a day off from training.......
A proper diet includes what you eat on training and non-training days. Whereas many athletes feel rather organized with the diet on training days, rest day or off-season nutrition can be confusing as athletes may struggle to know what and when to eat with the reduced energy expenditure. The basis of a training-supportive diet starts with a healthy foundation of eating. Thus, what you eat on an off-day from exercise (or off season) should not be too different compared to what you normally eat on a training day. Because your workouts require you to strategically consume slightly more energy from carbohydrates, the major change to your rest day diet is the removal of foods that normally support your training sessions (ex before, during and after). Therefore, there’s no need to eliminate carbs or drastically cut back on calories. Use your time away from training as an opportunity to increase your fruit, vegetable, whole grain, protein and healthy fat intake and spend a little extra time in the kitchen on meal prep. Be mindful about grazing and mindlessly eating with your extra free time. If you have a low intensity, short training session (ex. 30-minute easy session) in the morning on your rest day, it’s not critical to eat before the workout so long as you eat appropriately after the workout and you are not experiencing any ill-effects (dizzy/lightheaded/nausea) from a fasted exercise session.
Many athletes struggle so much with rest that the body never receives an intentional break from training/exercise.
Regardless how you much or little you enjoy your time away from training, unhealthy lifestyle habits may actually hinder your athletic development and set you up for a setback. Therefore, consider your rest day as a growth day – fuel and nourish your body to become a stronger, fitter and healthier athlete.
Because sports that include heavy lifting, endurance activity and all-out efforts can induce excessive inflammation, deplete glycogen stores and damage tissues and muscles, a break from training may be the only opportunity to strategically consume the right type of foods to help you take your fitness to the next level or return your body back to optimum health.
As it relates to nutrition during a day off from training.......
A proper diet includes what you eat on training and non-training days. Whereas many athletes feel rather organized with the diet on training days, rest day or off-season nutrition can be confusing as athletes may struggle to know what and when to eat with the reduced energy expenditure. The basis of a training-supportive diet starts with a healthy foundation of eating. Thus, what you eat on an off-day from exercise (or off season) should not be too different compared to what you normally eat on a training day. Because your workouts require you to strategically consume slightly more energy from carbohydrates, the major change to your rest day diet is the removal of foods that normally support your training sessions (ex before, during and after). Therefore, there’s no need to eliminate carbs or drastically cut back on calories. Use your time away from training as an opportunity to increase your fruit, vegetable, whole grain, protein and healthy fat intake and spend a little extra time in the kitchen on meal prep. Be mindful about grazing and mindlessly eating with your extra free time. If you have a low intensity, short training session (ex. 30-minute easy session) in the morning on your rest day, it’s not critical to eat before the workout so long as you eat appropriately after the workout and you are not experiencing any ill-effects (dizzy/lightheaded/nausea) from a fasted exercise session.