Nutrition And Energy For Runners

OK, let’s make an imagination effort. There you are again, confidently tying your shoes, heading to the door and off you go. You have been running for 5 minutes now, which is an optimistic start. Your shoes are the perfect choice, you are wearing an outfit that makes you feel comfortable and free, your sweatband perfectly matches your outfit and suddenly this abundance is cut in by a dull nausea and dizziness that kicks in and forces you to stop. Why does it happen?

It can be a faulty training, an oversunny afternoon or maybe an unorganized diet. Your speed and running force depend ultimately on what you feed your body with, how your body uses food to produce energy and how you optimize that energy. Your diet can help you run your best if you understand the ways in which it produces energy and the relationship between nutrition, metabolism and proper training. This tightness creates a recipe for success, but it is up to you to get the right ingredients.

Those who have some knowledge about healthy nutrition know that a diet consistent in fat is not a good one. It is not recommended, it will most probably increase your colesterol level and damage vital functions. Still, for runners a low fat diet ensures performance and health, but only to a certain point.

It appears that fat is sometimes useful, for example there are nutrients that are only used with fat. Secondly, there are fats that act on optimizing health, such as olive oil. It is highly recommended to balance your diet with the proper amount of fat so that good fats are also assimilated. Too few fat calories will not create a diet able to supply with important vital fats.

A diet that is too low on fat can compromise both health and performance. Our body’s demands must be properly satisfied if we wish to achieve performance. Runners have special caloric demands and their diet must supply adequate energy to meet training needs. A very low fat diet is a major challenge for other nutrients your body receives, which have to compensate for the initial lack of necessary calories. This lack makes it hard for the body to consume enough food to satisfy energy and nutrition demands.

It is recommended for runners to aim at 25% to 30% fat calories and try to get their fat income from products as olive oil, fish, avocados and nuts. This is a smart way to meet energy needs and nutritional demands for optimum performance.

You need to be aware of two basic principles upon which good training is built: proper nutrition and intelligent training. It implies no sacrifice whatsoever, this is just the recipe for staying healthy, keeping fit, good energy and running personal serial bests.