Healthy Eating For Sport

There is no perfect diet or single nutrition program that will meet the needs of every person or athlete. Nutritional needs vary between different sports and should be targeted individually based on factors such as activity levels, age, body composition and personal preferences. The main nutritional goal for all of us should be to maintain fitness and health. To put it simply this means we need to eat enough food to fuel our body for activity and we need to maintain our weight within a healthy range.

Unfortunately our typical New Zealand diet is high in fat, low in complex carbohydrate and dietary fibre, and high in salt and sugar. Many of us are consuming more calories than we are burning in a day, whilst at the same time we are not consuming important nutrients needed by the body for health and performance.

Eating for Fitness and Health

Beware of fad diets, it may be tempting to try the latest supplement in the quest for weight loss or sports performance but a tally up of your weekly food intake will do you better. While many athletes use supplements or vitamins regularly, it is always important to put a healthy eating plan into place first. Supplements or vitamins will never make up for a bad diet. 

Healthy Snacking

Snacks can offer nutritional advantages but they can also become liabilities depending on the amount of energy they contain. Mindless nibbling can lead to trouble in the form of unwanted calories, fat or sugar. Some snacks, such as chocolate, nuts, cheese and chips can add a lot of excess fat to the diet.

Why snack?

Many nutritionists recommend eating 5-6 meals a day to help with energy levels and weight management, however whether you should eat 3 meals or 6 meals depends on many factors. Well-chosen snacks can contribute to your daily nutrient needs and offer good recovery nutrition pre or post workout. Mindless snacking on high-calorie snack foods such as chips can sabotage your healthy eating regime.

Who should snack?

• Children need to eat regularly through out the day to provide nutrients for growth, development and activity. Think of healthy snacks as mini-meals and you’ll automatically make better choices.
• Eating smaller more frequent meals throughout the day helps keep blood sugar on a more even keel. Diabetics need to spread carbohydrates out evenly over the day as part of good diabetes management.
• If you work shifts or long hours, snacks can play an important role in productivity. Going too long in-between meals without eating can affect energy levels and concentration.
• Athletes can burn more than 5000 calories a day, the best way to deliver this amount of food is consume up into 6-8 meals over the day.
• If you exercise, then ideally you should consume carbohydrates and protein within one hour of training to aid recovery. Therefore a post-workout snack is crucial.