Sport nutrition is an essential part of your training strategy. It’s a new system in which the athlete’s performance is mainly, or at least greatly, influenced by his diet. Sport nutrition is a combination of things: you need to target certain types and amounts of food, and maximize the effect of your diet by timing your meals. Low GI (glycemic index) foods should be consumed before, and high GI foods during or after your exercise.

To perform well, muscles need energy (glycogen); by eating appropriately, and following the rules of sport nutrition, glycogen is available when it’s needed the most, and the athlete sees his performance greatly improved. So, if you take sport nutrition seriously, you will not only perform far better, you will also remain in good health.

For many years, weight loss supplements have enjoyed a huge market. However, they do involve certain risks, and it’s ill-advised to take them on your own! So do consult an expert for advice. There is no benefit in taking protein supplements, and vitamin supplements are only beneficial in vitamin deficient athletes.

Let an expert help you with your diet program, which should be adapted to your training and competition schedule. Eat fresh food as often as possible. Whatever your sport of choice is, balance your diet. However, be careful when you are not actively competing for any length of time, while you are on vacation or injured: adapt your diet to reflect lessened activity and avoid weight (fat) gain.

As losing weight is all about spending more energy than you consume by eating alone, more often than not a successful diet is accompanied by a fitness program. A fitness program will help you raise your metabolism, which is particularly beneficial once you get older. If you exercise regularly for a limited amount of time, your metabolism will remain higher throughout the day. You’ll not only burn more fat and lose weight, but your muscles will grow stronger; you are far less likely to fall, and your brain will also benefit and remain more flexible!

An example. A thermogenic diet contains MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides, which are present e.g. in milk fat and coconut oil), and can be considered a valid weight loss regime. MCTs are more water-soluble than long-chain fatty acids. They reach the liver more quickly and are immediately available for conversion into energy instead of fat.

Another principle is really considering your diet as a change of diet. Simply change your eating habits, and take it slowly. If you lose no more than a pound a week (2 kg a month), it’s far more likely to stay off!

Beware though: 1. fat is still an essential nutrient, and 2. just because a food is fat-free doesn’t mean it’s calorie-free.

Sport nutrition is new in the sense that, for the first time, an awful lot of research is being carried out at the moment, and papers published pertaining to the functional food market.

Myriam De Clercq is a Belgian web developer. Lots of things interest her: dogs (she is Tyke’s Missy) and sheep, photography, windmills, stamp collecting, good movies (she enjoys watching Humphrey Bogart, and car chases), racing cars and music (Andy Williams, Pink Floyd, blues). The man in her life is a graphic designer, and he’s a romantic fellow, which makes two of them. Businesswise she has been studying .NET lately, also learning intensively about what Web 2.0 is all about.

Read more about the above subject at http://www.sport-nutrition-and-weight-loss.info

Exercise is a crucial element in keeping ourselves healthy. However, during exercise, extra demands and stresses are placed upon the body compared to when it is at rest. The amount of nutrients and fuel required are far in excess of what is required at rest and they are used up much more quickly.

Someone eating a poor diet can manage to get through their day if it requires little or no activity, although they will probably be feeling below par. If that person decides to start exercising, eating that same diet, they will not be able to perform anywhere near their best, their body will be under stress as it struggles to meet the nutritional demands of the activity and their body will find it hard to recover from the exercise. A good diet is vital for everyone and nutritional needs are increased for those who exercise. For those involved in heavy training and competitive sports, nutrition can have a big impact on performance.

As a starting point, athletes and exercisers need to have healthy diets, full of good quality carbohydrates, proteins, essential fats, vitamins and minerals to ensure their bodies are generally in a good state of health. Building on from that, nutrition needs to be tailored to the particular type of activity being undertaken. For example, a bodybuilder and an endurance athlete have different nutritional requirements; neither would perform at their best by following a diet designed for the other.

Calorie requirements are increased for athletes. A healthy daily diet containing 2000 calories would be fine for a sedentary woman, but a female athlete, using over 1000 calories a day in training would soon be lacking in energy and feeling ill on so few calories. It is important that the diet contains enough calories to support the training load.

The proportion of carbohydrates and protein in the diet is increased for athletes and this will vary with the type of activity undertaken. Exercise increases oxidation and free radical damage within the body, so athletes may require a higher level of antioxidant vitamins and minerals to ensure good health.

The timing of food is also very important. Eating large amounts of food just before exercise is not good, so about three hours between the last meal and the start of exercise/ training is a good idea. However, it is probably a good idea to eat a high carbohydrate snack or drink just before exercise to provide a ready supply of glucose. Eating after training is vitally important in order to restock the body’s glycogen stores. Failure to do so can lead to reduced performance in the next training session.

For endurance athletes, eating a high carbohydrate diet in the few days preceding competition or long training sessions means that the body’s glycogen stores are fully stocked ready to provide the energy for prolonged activity.

Sport and exercise places increased stress on the body’s structural system. Bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments are being subjected to damage, being repaired, rebuilt and strengthened. Without good nutrition to carry out these processes, athletes are in danger of suffering injury and a longer recovery time form any injury sustained.

The importance of good nutrition in sport cannot be overlooked. It is not only the quality of the diet that is important but also the quantity, the content and the timing must be considered if the athlete is to maximise performance and stay healthy.