Nutritional Tips
The aim of sports nutrition is to optimise performance to achieve a competitive edge while maintaining an interest in meals. Good baseline eating patterns fuel the body with energy for hard training sessions and your best performances. Poor food choices reduce the energy available for exercise or supplying too much or not enough of the various nutrients essential for the best energy release.Here are some guidelines to provide a solid foundation for you to train well:
- Choose a wide selection of foods from all the major food groups. Not one food source contains all the nutrients essential for good health or best sport performance.
- You may need to eat differently from your less active friends and family.
- Eating breads, cereals (preferably whole grain), vegetables (potato, kumara, and taro), rice, pasta and legumes help to meet the needs of training and competition.
- Make sure you eat enough protein and choose lower fat options such as lean meats (chicken, fish, and lean steak).
- The amount of protein you need is the size and depth of your palm.
- Eat a diet lower in fat, especially saturated fat. Remove fat from your steak and other meat and choose to eat low fat yoghurt.
- Fluids are very important! Water makes up from 40 to 70% of our body mass!
- Drink enough fluids during training, competitions and throughout the day.
- Recovery nutrition is an important part of training. Rehydrate and refuel your body with carbohydrates so you can work just as hard if not better next training session.
- 500ml fruit juice or soft drink
- 60-70g packet jelly beans or jubes
- 2 slices toast/bread with jam or honey or banana topping
- 2 cereal bars
- 1 cup thick vegetable soup + large bread roll
- 115g (1 large or 2 small) Muffins, fruit buns or scones
- 300g creamed rice
