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Workout Nutrition to Fuel a Lean Strong Body

Pre-exercise nutrition needs.

What and when you eat before exercise can make a big difference to your performance and recovery. You not only want to fuel your workout but you need to have enough of the right types of food in your body to preserve muscle mass and speed recovery.

Strategy #1 - Protein before exercise.

Eating some lean protein, (dairy, meat, fish, chicken, protein powder) in the few hours before exercise:

Can help you maintain or even increase your muscle size. That’s important for anyone who wants to improve health, body composition, or performance.
Can reduce markers of muscle damage (myoglobin, creatine kinase, and myofibrillar protein degradation). Or at least prevent them from getting worse. (Carbohydrates or a placebo eaten before exercise don’t seem to do the same thing.) The less damage to your muscles, the faster you recover, and the better you adapt to your exercise over the long term.
Floods your bloodstream with amino acids just when your body needs them most. This boosts your muscle-building capabilities. So not only are you preventing damage, you’re increasing muscle size.

Strategy #2 – Carbs (fruits, veggies and healthy starches) before exercise.

Eating carbs before exercise:

Fuels your training and helps with recovery. It’s a popular misconception that you only need carbs if you’re engaging in a long (more than two hour) bout of endurance exercise. In reality, carbs can also enhance shorter term (one hour) high-intensity training. So unless you’re just going for a quiet stroll, ensuring that you have some carbs in your system will improve high intensity performance.
Preserves muscle and liver glycogen. This tells your brain that you are well fed, and helps increase muscle retention and growth.
Stimulates the release of insulin. When combined with protein, this improves protein synthesis and prevents protein breakdown. Another reason why a mixed meal is a great idea. No sugary carb drinks required.

Strategy #3 – Healthy Fats (olive oil, fish oil, avocado, nuts) before exercise:

Don’t appear to improve nor diminish sport performance. And they don’t seem to fuel performance — that’s what carbs are for.
Do help to slow digestion, which maintains blood glucose and insulin levels and keeps you on an even keel.
Provide some vitamins and minerals, and they’re important in everyone’s diet.

Pre-exercise nutrition in practice

If you work out late enough just eat a well-balanced meal 2-3 hours before exercise. If, however you are working out upon waking try these options that digest quickly:

A protein shake made with protein powder with some veggies and fruit and juts thrown and a low calorie milk or almond milk
Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts

During Exercise Nutrition Needs:

If you are only working out 30 – 120 minutes there is no need to fuel with anything but water and maybe an electrolyte drink, however if you are training for longer you will need to eat some protein and carbs during the workout to enhance performance. During-exercise nutrition needs.

For training that is longer than two hours, sports drinks can be a huge help. Every hour you’ll want to consume:

15 grams protein
30-45 grams carbs

This can come in the form of liquids, gels, or even some solid food.

Post-exercise Nutrition Needs.

Post-workout nutrition can help you recover, rehydrate, refuel, build muscle, and improve future performance.

Strategy #1 - Protein after exercise:

Eating protein after exercise prevents protein breakdown and stimulates synthesis, leading to increased or maintained muscle tissue. So it’s a great strategy for better recovery, adaptation, and performance.

Want fast and convenient? Make an awesome post-workout protein shake.
Want real food? Then make an awesome high-protein meal. Any high quality complete protein should do the job, as long as you eat enough. That means about 40-60 grams for men, and 20-30 grams for women.

Strategy #2 - Carbs after exercise:

Eating healthy carbs, (fruits, veggies and fiber rich starches) will restore our energy after a workout so while eating your protein throw some fruits and veggies into that shake OR add ½ cup brown rice and a veggie to that post workout meal.

Strategy #3 – Fats after Exercise:

Emerging research suggests that healthy fats eaten post exercise can actually increase the amount of available protein that we are eating. So use 2% milk in that protein shake and reduce the amount of milk OR drizzle some olive oil or add ¼ of an avocado to your meal.

Eating properly will keep you energized and create a lean fit body in no time!

Want Tips for Better Sleep?

j01818
May 1, 2013
4 min read

Ready, Set…Sleep??

I can count on one hand the number of clients, friends and colleagues that get a good night’s sleep. In fact I read somewhere that many people cling to the fact that they cannot sleep, they mention it in conversation, they claim it as a part of who they are, they actually brag on it and don’t want to give it up. In my experience this does ring true. I lead workshops on peak performance, stress management and weight loss and each workshop contains the proponent of sleep/rest. When I mention it everyone sighs as if that could never happen for them. No way can they get to sleep early enough to sleep for 7-8 hours, which is what I recommend. And then when I mention suggestions for getting enough sleep, most folks shake their head, they could NEVER do those things…I am hoping 2014 will be YOUR YEAR OF SLEEP. Sleep can be the component you need to:

Lose weight
Learn new behaviors
Improve your athletic performance
Enhance your energy
Keep you happy and healthy

Looking at the stages of sleep helps to understand why more sleep is better. 

Stage 1 is light sleep, where the body begins to lose muscle tone, muscles twitch and there’s a loss of self-awareness. This transition phase, in which we drift into sleep, lasts approximately 5-10 minutes (National Sleep Foundation 2013). It is an important phase because it allows the body to slow down and muscles to relax.

Stage 2 is where muscle tone is lost and is a light dreamless sleep. We spend half our sleep in this stage. Brain activity, heart rate and breathing slow down. Body temperature falls (a cooler temperature in the bedroom helps sleep), and the body reaches a state of total relaxation in preparation for deeper stages of sleep. So far though, you have not gotten hardly any of the best benefits of sleep. These happen NEXT…

Stage 3 marks the beginning of deep slow-wave sleep. This is when Human Growth Hormone (HGH) starts to be released. HGH tells the body to burn fat and helps maintain and repair muscles and cells, and it is key to improving athletic performance.

Stage 4, the deepest slow-wave sleep, helps to replenish physical and mental energy. During this stage, the body does most of its repair and regeneration work, thanks primarily to a continual release of HGH.

Stage 5 is when Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep takes place. People who experience healthy sleep spend 25% of the night in this stage (National Sleep Foundation 2013). It is when dreaming occurs, which is important for healthy brain function. Dreaming also provides energy to the brain and body and helps create long-term memories. The arms and legs experience periods of paralysis, which is thought to protect us from acting out our dreams. REM sleep also stimulates brain regions used in learning.

So stages 3, 4, & 5 possess the restorative powers that we need to be our best.

According to the national sleep foundation we need 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. But, according to a 2008 study most adults get about 6.5 hours of sleep per night. You may think that decreasing your sleep by only 30 – 90 minutes a night is ok but sleep loss accumulates into sleep debt. Over a 5-day workweek, a nightly sleep loss of 90 minutes builds into a 7.5-hour sleep debt by the weekend. This equates to losing one full night of sleep during the workweek. Wow, no wonder we cannot lose weight, make good decisions, build muscle and have all the energy we need in a day. Study after study of athletes also proves that a lack of sleep impedes performance. Here are just a couple of examples.

In 2008, Mah, Mah and Dement studied college swimmers who, for the first 2 weeks of the study, maintained their usual sleep-wake patterns and were tested on 15-meter swim sprint time, reaction time off start blocks, turn time and number of kick strokes. The athletes then extended their sleep to 10 hours per day for 6-7 weeks. They were tested again, and results showed that the swimmers swam the 15-meter sprint 0.51 seconds faster, reacted 0.15 seconds sooner off the start blocks, improved turn time by 0.10 seconds and increased kick strokes by 5 kicks.
Mah and colleagues also studied seven Stanford University football players. For 2 weeks the football players kept to their normal sleeping schedules. The players then aimed for a minimum of 10 hours of sleep each night. They were tested before and after the sleep extension, and their 20-yard shuttle run times decreased by 0.10 seconds on the second round of tests. Forty-yard dash times also decreased by 0.10 seconds, and daytime sleepiness and fatigue scores fell significantly. Vigor scores dramatically improved (AASM 2010).

Now here are my suggestions for getting in your 7-8 or more hours of sleep each night.

Use your bed only for sleeping and sex and maybe a small amount of reading
Go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning
Limit caffeine, particularly in the afternoon and evening.
Limit alcohol. Especially avoid excessive consumption before bed.
Lower the temperature in the house or bedroom before and during sleep
Take a hot bath 90-120 minutes before bed
Keep a sleep diary to track patterns.
Eat 3-4 hours before bed and avoid heavy meals.
If you don’t fall asleep within 30 minutes, get out of bed and do something else until your body and mind feel tired.
Create a bedtime de-stressing ritual