Category: General Food Recipes

Recovery, Body Protection and Sports Nutrition

Food gives us energy and fuels physical activity. Not eating enough can cause a drop in energy and endurance levels and, in the world of sports, can lead to painful losses. This is why athletes learn quickly to pack that extra energy bar just in case.

But food is not only good as energy sources to our muscles. They also hold substances that promote our health, boost our immunity to sicknesses, promote tissue repair, protect cells from damage, protect against age-related cognitive decline and increase resistance to cancers, and other illnesses, all of which are important to maintaining good performance and longevity in sports. These protective substances are commonly known as phytochemicals.

Phytochemicals means “chemicals from plants.” Vegetables and fruits therefore are excellent sources.

Color means protection

Colorful vegetables and fruits have high levels of phytochemicals. In most cases, colorful skins of fruits and vegetables have the most concentrated source of protective nutrients.

RED

Red fruits maintains heart health, memory function, lowers risk to some cancers, and ensures urinary tract health. Lycopene and anthocyanins are available in red fruits and vegetables. Lycopede reduces the risk of several types of cancer, heart and lung disease. Anthocyanins helps protect against heart disease by preventing blood clots. Both may slow the cell aging process.

ORANGE / YELLOW

Beta-carotene is abundant in orange and yellow substances. It is an antioxidant that helps reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease, maintain eyesight, help boost the immune system, and promote repair of damaged DNA. With Vitamin C, Bioflavonoids which are also contained in orange and yellow fruits and vegetables, help reduce the risk of cancer, strengthen bones and teeth, heal wounds, keep skin healthy and lower the risk of heart attacks.

BLUE / P URPLE

Anthocyanins and Phenols make up blue and purple fruits and vegetables. Research says they may help reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s and may have anti-aging effects.

GREEN

Green fruits and vegetables are among the best sources of lutein. Lutein helps reduce the risk of cataracts and mascular degeneration, which can cause loss of vision. Green vegetables are also rich in sulforaphane, isocyanate and indoles which hamper the action of carcinogens.

WHITE

Allicin, which are found in garlic, leeks, and onions, helps control blood pressure and cholesterol. It looks like it also increases the body’s ability to fight infection. Cauliflower contains sulforaphane, and mushrooms contain selenium. Both are also cancer-fighting.

Because they protect your body from injuries, diseases and untimely aging, colorful vegetables and fruits must be first in mind when buying food to maintain good sports nutrition.

Essentials for fast recovery

Proper recovery is also a main concern in sports nutrition. Sufficient rest and sleep allows the body’s systems to recuperate from training stress and makes you stronger and faster. Training gains can be maximized, recovery process speeded up and performance enhanced by correct food and liquid consumption after workout.

The amount of food you need depends on the extent of the depletion of glycogen stores. How much food you need depends on the extent that your activity depleted your glycogen stores.

For a minimum of 2 hours of exercise, sports nutrition experts recommend around 1-1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight within 15 minutes after cessation of exercise and every two hours until your next complete meal. Thats around 50-120 grams or 200-480 calories of carbohydrates for most athletes.

Proper Education On Sports Nutrition

Sports nutrition is not that straightforward as it seems. To achieve desired results, there has to be some form of an education about the functions and processes of the human body, its reaction to the environment, its requirements for certain nutrients, and many others.

The bottom line here is that there has to be an appropriate sports nutrition education before anything is done to the body.

A good sports nutrition education program must lay down the basics. First, it must advice the intake of the right amount of fluids at the right time.

Also, it must suggest a good diet that includes the right variety and amount of food taken at a specific time.

Another basic info is the fact that only safe, appropriate, and effective nutrition supplements must be taken at the right time. These information should be the core or foundation of all other details presented in a sports nutrition education program.

This education on sports nutrition has to be as updated as possible. As the years go by, more and more products are being introduced in the market that are said to advocate nutrition for athletes and those engaged in body fitness.

Before being lured by such products, it is essential that there has to be a clear understanding of the components first. Moreover, the legitimacy of the claims must be initially confirmed as well. Otherwise, instead of getting better results, the opposite might take place.

Enough research and observations of previous experiences and circumstances must likewise be available to an education about sports nutrition. There should be facts but these have to be somehow supported by concrete incidents and testimonials.

When buying a product, this explains why one has to survey first and avoid being impulsive as previous positive or negative feedback says a lot about a product. However, one need not be a plain imitator thinking that what works to other people will similarly work for him. An assessment of individual characteristics is also very important.

Sports nutrition education may come in several forms. A lot of institutions have already been conducting seminars and other awareness programs to educate people. Some sports and health facilities offer such seminars in-house while some outsource for resource people.

Oftentimes, certain campaigns are purely aimed at providing education about sports nutrition but there are others which launch such programs in support of a sales and marketing strategy.

One should be careful with these types as the efforts may be too sales-oriented and may take for granted individual needs and concerns.

All in all, one must take note that sports nutrition is no joke and that proper education is really essential. It involves the entire body and may significantly cause negative effects if not properly administered and controlled.

Health is greatly dependent thus, one should indeed be cautious. Sports is generally positive and healthy but at times, it is coupled with improper nutrition that significantly depletes its favourable effects. Awareness and a clear understanding of the field and of ones body should be a prerequisite.

Nutritional Health in Sports

Nutritional health is very important. The nutrients that we take in are practically the reasons why we are healthy or why we are not. It could also be a grid to determine if we can eventually become sports superstars or not. Nutritional health may be the main reason why you are tall, strong and have the skills to be good in sports. This is also vital for having a strong mind and a healthy body because of the fact that these nutrients fuel almost all bodily functions.

In reality, many people fail to achieve a high level of nutritional health. Some reasons why they are not adequately nourished is because of their lack of information. Some people do not even know that what they are eating is bad for them. Some food also lack nutritional facts that they should have on their labels. And some just do not care at all.

People also have this misconception that what is tasty is good for your health. It is really hard to resist unhealthy food because of their availability on the market. Media also advertise more on unhealthy junk foods rather than healthy ones. Unhealthy food may be a reason for us to be fat. If you want to keep healthy, you must first get rid of unwanted fats and be fit as possible.

Some athletes also have low nutritional levels because of certain factors. One is poor understanding of sports nutrition principles. They think that eating many will make the healthy.

Nutritional requirements also differ among people depending on their training program and personal characteristics like age, sex and body type. Their failure to recognize these may also cause malnourishment as they may take too much or less of their nutrients required.

Some athletes also diet too much compromising their nutritional needs. Their lack of knowledge on nutritional facts also contributes to it. Their lack of time and opportunity to eat and the tendency to skip meals is also one reason. Overeating is also a factor of malnourishment because you might eat and take in a lot of fats and unwanted chemicals that may be unhealthy.

The sports nutritional health can be broken down into the foundation of what food is basically made of namely proteins, carbohydrates and fats. We should get optimum amounts of these types for more energy and more muscle gains. You can only lose more than one pound of fat per week if you exercise properly and eat the right food instead of starving yourself. Starving will only bring you malnourishment.

If you are losing fat quickly by starving yourself, over dieting and doing too much exercise, you may be at a risk of slowing down your metabolism and your body might start using the glucose found in your muscles as a source for energy. That is why losing weight bit by bit for a long period of time instead of losing weight quickly is much more preferable.

There are toxins found in our fatty tissues and when we loose fat, these toxins are released back into our body. Losing too much fat in a short period of time means that you are releasing more amounts of toxins into the body causing us to be sick.

On your diet, try to avoid eating food with too much saturated fat because they are bad fats and will make you gain more weight. What you should do is to ingest unsaturated fats of the good fat because it will help you lose weight.

By eating good oils like deep-water fish oil, flax seed oil and linseed oils, you are actually aiding yourself as it rids your body of fatty deposits helping you lose more fat. This weight loss program actually takes a lot of time so only take measurements every two months to give you a better look on how your are progressing on keeping fit and sexy and how much fat you are actually losing.

I discourage you on taking those commercial diets because they will only set you up for failure and disappointment. These diets make you lose fat so quickly that when you try to start eating again more than you did while on diet, you will gain weight very fast. You should look for a way to lose weight in a slow and realistic rate.

Here are some tips: First is to stay away from white sugar and all other natural sweetener. You should also stay away from simple sugars and take in slowly digested complex carbohydrates. Eat food high in fiber in order to detoxify. And lastly, exercise. The right combination of exercise and nutrients will give you a high level of sports nutritional health.

Nutraceutical Industry and Sports Nutrition

The role of food in total health care is not something new to mankind. The use of food to maintain man’s health is as natural as day and night. More than 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates, considered as the father of medicine, said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.” It is this principle that eventually led to the explosion of the nutraceutical industry.

The nutraceutical industry is concerned with nutraceuticals, that is, food or part of a food that offers medical and/or health benefits including prevention or treatment of disease.

All therapeutic areas such as anti arthritic, cold and cough, pain killers, digestion, sleeping disorders, blood pressure, cholesterol, prevention of certain cancers, osteoporosis, depression and diabetes are covered by nutraceuticals.

Products range from herbal dietary supplements, actual food components in dosage form such as capsules or tablets to beverages fortified with vitamins and genetically engineered designer foods, functional foods, processed foods such as cereal, soup and beverages.

Functional foods, the most popular term among consumers are modifieds food or food ingredients that may provide a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients it contains.

Nutraceuticals is widely popular in the US, Canada, Japan, and Europe. The demand for nutraceuticals has been growing worldwide due to consumer awareness of the links of diet and disease, aging population, rising health care cost and innovations in food technology and nutrition.

Competition factors for the Sports Nutrition Market

Product/brand differentiation

Because of greater saturation and competition in the marketplace sports nutrition products look alike and sound the same. Maintaining a brand that stands apart from the rest is difficult but a thing to strive for.

Research-substantiated claims.

Consumers ability to make intelligent choices should never be underestimated. People place more faith endorsements by university professors and doctors and claims backed by independent research than by endorsements by celebrities.

Core products and strategies

A good strategy now is to focus development of core products or integrating with large food and pharmaceutical concerns (e.g., Powerbar, BalanceBar).

E-commerce

For small companies that cannot or will not rely on strong distribution relationships, e-commerce is an increasingly attractive option.

Basis for marketing strategy

The factors for competition stated above have been gleaned from researches of what consumers are willing to pay for. Overall, customers want:

Something New

Retailers and consumers clamor for “new,” whether it means new forms of delivery (gels, effervescent tablets, functional beverages), new applications of or combinations with existing products, or all-natural sports nutrition products that are free of artificial ingredients and solvents.

Excellent Tasting All-natural products

Consumers are also looking for products that taste good and are easy to take. Taste is a major feature that can either make or break a product. The hunt is on for manufacturers to come up with better and new flavors.

High quality and safe products

Regulatory agencies exist to protect the consumers. It is the responsibility of product manufacturers to undertake sound research and prove the efficacy and safety of their nutraceutical products. Products that are based on false or misleading marketing should be and are banned and condemned.

Through product sales and advances in research and development, the Sports Nutrition Nutraceutical Industry is now validating what was proven, early on, by the fitness and nutrition pioneers — sports nutrition products provide easier access to a healthier way of performing and living.

Natural Sports Nutrition: The Diet for Champions

They say that great artists are made, not born. The same could also be said for athletes. Of course, genetics plays a large part in differentiating a mere athlete from a sports champion, but to be able to attain that legendary status in the Hall of Fame, an aspiring sportsman must go through the strictest of diets that will help shape and strengthen the physique.

By drinking sufficient amounts of water and consuming a balanced diet, the body can generate a lot of energy which will greatly help in boosting for top athletic performance.

What are the factors to be considered in designing a complete and healthy natural sports nutrition program?

1. Hydration

Obviously, the most important thing in natural sports nutrition is water. The significance of water can never be discounted because the human body is composed of sixty percent of it, and every bodily function cannot work without water. The good old eight-cups-of-water-a-day recommendation is essential because the body must replace the water it eliminates, like sweat and urine.

Here are some helpful reminders to maintain proper hydration:

-Instead of slugging humongous amounts of water in infrequent sittings, drink small portions in frequent durations.

-Cold beverages aid the body in cooling down body temperature, therefore cutting down the amount of sweating.

-One should drink 2-3 cups of water for every pound that the body losses after exercising.

2. Sources of Fuel

A balanced diet is another must for natural sports nutrition. Athletes must acquire the perfect combination of calories that can be consumed from protein, carbohydrates and fats, which are great sources of energy.

Carbohydrates are the most important fuel source, which can be found in foods such as breads, pastas, rice, fruits, veggies and cereals. These foods can supply the body about seventy percent of the needed daily calories. Carbs provide the body the power and endurance it needs for short-duration activities that involve maximum level of intensity. This fuel comes from the energy given by sugar and starches that the body converts.

Here are strategies to maximize the potential of carbs:

-Start loading up on carbs at least several days before prior to the competition.

-Carbs should be consumed in greater amounts in the duration of activities that lasts more than one hour to fend off the onset of fatigue.

Another imperative factor in natural sports nutrition is proteins. Athletes should eat lots of dairy, eggs, meats, fish and chicken, along with nuts and beans. Protein supplies as much as fifteen percent of calories in the body. To determine the amount of protein needed by an athlete, the following factors should be considered: his fitness level, the type of exercise along with its duration and intensity, and his overall carb and calorie intake.

The last fuel source that is important for natural sports nutrition is fats. There are two kinds: saturated and unsaturated. Although it is a significant component in nutrition, the intake of fats should be strictly monitored. Too much consumption of fats may lead to major health problems such as cancer and heart disease.

The road to sports excellence is not easy. Along with fostering courage and determination, athletes have to follow the strict regimen brought on by natural sports nutrition. But all of these will be worth the trouble once victory is achieved.