Do you intentionally underfuel during workouts and/or on race day?
Intentional calorie/carb/fluid/sodium deprivation is not uncommon. As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, I often work with athletes who struggle with their relationship with food and the body. There's a fear of consuming calories around/during workouts and often train and race with the mindset of "how low can I go??" In other words, the athlete tries to complete a given workout or event with the least amount of calories/carbs possible. Although many athletes learn the hard way through a performance or health decline, it's a wonderful "ah ha" moment when an athlete experiences what a body can do when it is well fueled.
For many athletes, the desire to lose weight and/or change body composition or to become more "metabolically" efficient are the primary motives for underfueling. Intentional insufficient fueling is often the result of a desire to lose weight (or to avoid gaining weight).
While an athlete may be able to complete a given workout or race with less fuel/hydration than recommended, there are consequences. Ultimately, when an athlete is in a negative energy balance (expending more calories than consuming) during the day and/or not taking in adequate fuel/hydration before/during/after workouts, the many metabolic processes that allow the body to adapt to the stress of training are compromised. More so, the body struggles to recover between training sessions. Here are some of the consequences of underfueling.
- Increased risk for injury and illness
- Inability to train at high intensity
- Lack of strength and power
- Delayed recovery
- Trouble concentrating
- Difficulty sleeping
- Moodiness
- Feeling run down
- Underperforming
- Hormonal issues
- Decreased mental function, increased depression
Eat enough.
Don't let a season of training and/or racing become compromised or cut your athletic career short due to inadequate energy consumption. Underfueling sabotages your health and performance - it does not make you a better athlete. Restricting calories because of an irrational belief that performance will improve if weight is lost (or because you are afraid to gain weight) is not the strategy to becoming a better athlete. By fueling your body properly, you may be pleasantly surprised to learn that you feel and perform better.
With so many voices and sources providing you nutrition advice, there's one simple message to remember....
If you want your body to perform well, respect it by giving it the fuel that it deserves.