Natural Sports Nutrition: 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.

The World of Sports Nutrition

Advancements in medicine and an increase in capitalism in the world as well as other factors all contributed to the development of the field of sports nutrition.

As scientists learned more and more about our bodies and the optimum level of strength and physical fitness they can harbor, businessmen jumped the gun and manufactured products and services that actually help athletes meet these optimum levels. The media joined in the ruckus and published materials leading to the promotion of both the scientific and the commercial side of the field.

Sports nutrition has been changing through the years around the world. It’s not just that the topics are different – the emphasis and approach have also changed.

Peak Performance, a sports magazine carried an article on dehydration in runners on October 1990, its maiden issue. This article compared the benefits of plain water with those of dilute glucose solutions, which are more isotonic and therefore absorbed more rapidly.

Today, go into almost any supermarket, convenience stores and even school cafeterias and you’ll find a ready supply of sports drinks aimed at maintaining hydration just like glucose solutions.

The difference is that by using soluble long-chain glucose polymers instead of simple glucose, it’s now possible to create an isotonic hydrating drink which also supplies significant amounts of carbohydrate to working muscles. And, the good thing is, sports drinks also taste better.

More than 10 years ago, it was made public that muscle damage brought about by free-radicals may be reduced by having supplements of antioxidant vitamins A, C and E. Years after, antioxidant supplementation became a norm in the world of sports nutrition.

Now, researchers are also beginning to understand that muscle damage is a more complex subject. It is difficult to assess free radical damage in athletes and it has been found out that large amounts of antioxidant nutrients may actually cause cellular damage and impair performance.

The “Carbo loading” technique has been widely used over the years by athletes all over the world. A carbohydrate-rich diet is important in maintaining muscle glycogen stores thus ensuring high endurance levels.

However, in the 1990’s it became clear that the ‘glycaemic index’ and release rate of different carbohydrates had important influence on when they should best be consumed in relation to physical activity.

The relationship of carbohydrates and proteins were also discovered namely that carbohydrates promote protein-sparing in the body. It was also discovered recently that consuming carbohydrates before and during prolonged bouts of strenuous exercise can help protect the immune system.

One of the most exciting recent developments in sports nutrition has been the rise of creatine supplementation. The use of creatine is now very common. Creatine renews the muscles essential energy source, ATP or adenosine triphosphate. Increased levels in muscles optimizes energy turnover meaning you’ll more energy for high power exercise and faster recovery during and after workouts. Creatine also increases the athlete’s maximum effort, delays fatigue and therefore prolongs endurance.

New wisdom and therefore new products have definitely enabled athletes to fuel themselves better, work harder, train longer and recover more rapidly. However, as in any kind of innovation there will always be downsides.

Nutritional supplements available to most athletes in the 80’s were very straightforward. Some athletes took drugs but the boundaries between nutritional supplements and drugs clear. Today, the race to find new formulas to boost performance has resulted to the availability of sports nutrition supplements which do not really occur naturally. The result is that the distinction between a nutrient and a performance-enhancing substance has become increasingly blurred.

Some of these supplements contain ingredients that can cause athletes to violate the rules and regulations governing their sport because of unintentional contamination by other, ‘exotic’, substances present in the supplement manufacturing environment.

More developments will be created in the world of sports nutrition and these will definitely spawn ethical questions. “Nutrigenomics”—the relationship between genetics and nutrition—will be more researched upon.

As scientists become more skilled at discovering the processes of our genes, it will be possible that rather than adopting a general approach for sports nutrition, athletes around the world will be genetically tested to help them determine precise individual requirements for optimum health.

The next years will predictably be more exciting for the world of sports nutrition.

Books On Sports Nutrition

Due to the increasing interest in sports nutrition and a growing number of athletes and health buffs becoming more conscious of the nutrition they take in to power their performance, a lot of books have already been released to disseminate more information and further heighten people’s awareness. This is, in fact, very beneficial as awareness is most of the time the springboard of concrete actions.

One of these books on sports nutrition is that of Nancy Clark entitled, Sports Nutrition Guidebook. This book is a collection of solutions suggested by different sports nutritionists.

Nancy Clark, a renowned sports nutritionist herself, shows how one can identify well what to eat to get more energy, cope well with stress, control weight, improve overall health, and improve the quality of workouts in the midst of a stressful lifestyle.

She also gives suggestions on how to lose excess body fat in the body while maintaining the energy for further exercise. She also provides several tips on maximizing the benefits of what one person eats. This book is rich with practical tips on sports nutrition that are easy to follow and apply in day to day living.

Moreover, Susan Kleiner’s book on sports nutrition entitled, High-Performance Nutrition: The Total Eating Plan to Maximum Your Workout, presents what one needs to eat in line with a workout plan to achieve optimum results.

She advocates the importance of a good partnership between diet and exercise in performing excellently in sports. She shows how one can bring out the best in any type of workout or exercise, be it aerobics, strength training, endurance training, cross training, and other recreational sports.

Another sports nutrition book is Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes written by Monique Ryan. The author’s two-decade experience in counselling athletes about their nutritional needs and intake brought about this book.

She explains both the general principles which are applicable to endurance athletes of any sport and specific guidelines which are for those engaged in more specific sports like swimming, triathlons, cycling, mountain biking, distance running, and many others.

She likewise covers the basics of nutrition as well as how to train and make that training persist. Overall, this sports nutrition book is a detailed, updated, but practical guide to nutrition.

Still adding up to the list of sports nutrition books is the one entitled Eating for Endurance.

The author is a registered dietician who specializes in sports nutrition as well as an elite endurance athlete. Strategies on improving one’s diet, maintaining a healthy and ideal weight, successfully handling extreme environments, using sports nutrition supplements, and many other helpful information on sports nutrition are included in the book.

This is indeed a very credible book as the author speaks from first-hand experience.

One must indeed take the initiative to equip himself with the necessary knowledge and information if he really wants to do well in this aspect. Besides, putting an effort on sports nutrition will benefit no one else but himself.

These books are there not to give false promises or misleading information. Instead, their purpose is to show that achieving goals and targets had already happened in the past and is therefore totally feasible in the present if only one will commit to it.

There are still many other sports nutrition books out in the market that aim to help in information dissemination and proper education of people. Sports nutrition is indeed something that is not supposed to be taken for granted.

Mere exercise is not enough as it has to be coupled with the right and balanced diet as well as the right attitude towards one’s health in general.

American Sports Nutrition

The Americans usually dominate sporting events. They appear bigger, stronger and have longer resistance. They say that the secret is through their hard work and training. But their real secret is their diet that gives them that strong physique.

Their diet and nutritional intake is different compared to us. So what is in this american style of sports nutrition? I will elaborate some of their diet and nutritional technique for you to have more strength and energy as you play your game.

Do you want to enhance your performance and increase lean muscle? Try the creatine that is commonly found in American sports nutrition.

This will give you more energy to work out longer and harder that will help you get maximum results. Creatine can also help you recover quickly. This supplement will work for any athlete who does weight lifting and any other quick burst of activity like sprinting. You may be able to do more before you hit fatigue point.

Your body converts this unique powder into adenosine triphosphate, which is the energy of our cells, and stores it into the mitichondria of each muscle cell giving it reserved energy. Every muscle contraction is fueled by atp, so we can do more because of the stored atp. This can enhance your performance and lean muscle gain.

This product is 100% pure pharmaceutical grade creatinh monohydrate. You should at least take 1000 grams per dosage. Creatine does not contain any additive and filters. This chemical is found naturally in many foods so it is practically safe. And it will also not affect hormonal levels.

Whether your goal is for maximum athletic performance, increased lean muscle or prolonged endurance, creatine is the answer for you. It also has cardio protective qualities. Creatine from American sports nutrition is the best way to supplement a healthy diet and active lifestyle.

Another one would be the American sports nutrition whey protein. It is a high quality, lactose free and predigested protein. This nutritional supplement is a great natural source of high potency essential amino acids.

If you want an increase in muscle strength, do it with American whey. The ion-exchanged whey protein in this supplement is the most preferred and bio-available for your body. This means your body can utilize the supplementation of American whey better than other types of protein.

American whey protein is also low on calories, tastes great, and mixes easily with rice, milk and water. It also comes in a variety of delicious flavors.

There are many more diets out there like the American sports nutrition that offers protein as the main component of their nutritional diet. Examples of these are the American whey creamy vanilla extreme, American whey double dutch chocolate, and the American whey wild berry.

They just differ in the dosage as you take them but practically the same results. Some of them require a lot of quantities for the supplement to work. And it also has to be taken in regularly if possible you should follow the diet everyday.

You may have noticed in the American sports nutrition’s that the main nutrient they are focused on are proteins.

So what is in proteins that make it so vital in the nutrition of Americans? Proteins are the main body builder nutrient. Protein focuses on the production of muscle cells. Protein also participates in muscle contraction or the movement of muscles.

If you want to have bigger, leaner and stronger muscles, there should be a massive intake of proteins before and after your training. That is why protein is so important not only to athletes but also to normal people as well. Protein also contributes to the height of a person.

If you want to be as tall as the Americans, you have to have a lot of protein in your diet or at least use the supplements that American sports nutrition offer.

We must remember that it is not about the nutrition we get but it is about how we get it and when we get it. There are optimal times where the nutrients we get will enhance our performance and boost our nutritional level. American sports nutrition targets these optimal times in order for our body to get the most out of it and help us be healthy and build up our muscles.

Sports Nutrition

If you have definitely no idea on what sports nutrition is all about, then this article on sports nutrition information might enlighten you.

It is good to know about sports nutrition, not only because you are an athlete or thinking of being one, but it can also help in your nutritional status. This kind of nutrition does not just apply to athletes, though you would first perceive that upon reading its name. Sports nutrition actually applies to everyone, only that it is concentrated on athletes.

Good sports nutrition is not only about what you eat, assuming you are an athlete or would want to become one. It is also about the degree of importance of the food that you eat.

Researchers have come up with sports nutrition information saying that what athletes consume before and after a session of training makes a very big difference on the recovery and performance.

Diets that contain ideal nutrient combinations enhance your performance and also your recovery, at the same time improves the integrity of your muscles. So diets that have an exaggerated amount or excessive amount of a certain vitamin or mineral, or lacking otherwise, do not help your body at all. In fact, it makes your health worse, if what you have left after following this kind of diet from quite some time can actually still be considered as ‘health’.

Carbohydrates and proteins can do wonders for your stance. However, you must not neglect pieces of sports nutrition information saying that for a better training and workout to occur, the carbohydrates and proteings must be combined at the right time. Why? It is because nutrient timing is one of the many strategies that can deem to be very beneficial for those who exercise daily.

Sports nutrition information will also tell you that if you want to fight the obesity epidemic face to face, then you must first increase your daily intake of calcium in your diets. Calcium can’t only help your bones and also help you avoid bone diseases or illnesses, but it can also do a big thing in fighting obesity.

When taking in carbohydrates, you have to know if these carbohydrates are needed by your system. If you take certain carbohydrates that are not essential for your health, then there is a big tendency that your health will be compromised.

So, as mentioned, you must take in adequte amounts only. You also have to be aware of which carbohydrates are good or which are bad. Bad carbohydrates are carbohydrates that will have an adverse effect on you. So who would want bad carbohydrates in their system? Most definitely not you.

Everyday, athletes are faced, and sometimes even ambushed, with an abundance of very delicious foods that are very accessible for them. Sometimes even too accessible, which becomes a reason why some, or rather most of the athletes, find it hard to say no to consuming them. But if good performance or success is the goal then health must come first, and say no to those foods that are very tempting.

Everyone knows that self-control is part of being an athlete, but this self-control does not just apply to the performance or temper but also to the food that is being consumed.

For the majority of the human population, eating is the only part of the day that can be considered pleasurable; it is like saying that life without strawberries can be grim.

The only explanation to this is that many people have learned to depend on food for comfort when you are feeling lonely, isolated or stressed. It is a horrible coping stress mechanism. Yeah, it could undermine your stress for a few minutes as you eat, but when you are done with that, you will feel a lot worse when you look at your fat self in the mirror.

There are numerous approaches to dieting and many empty claims for fake successes with fad diets. There are the calories restriction, high protein and fat or low carbohydrates, low fat or high fiber. There are pieces of evidence that strongly suggest that people may have different kinds of responses to specific diets depending on whether their weight is too much distributed towards their abdomen or not.

Sports nutrition information is not so hard to understand at all. There are no complications, only contraindications. So basically, sports nutrition information will tell you what to eat, what not to eat, why and why not and what are the effects of all of the options that have been mentioned.