Last week, one of my triathlete clients said ‘if you spend 15 hours per week training, you need to spend adequate time on nutrition‘ and planning your meals. I could not agree more. How many athletes do you know that spend hours training, and just wing it when they eat? ‘I am training, so I can eat anything‘. They also seem to complain they are not reaching either their weight goals or race times. Your nutrition should match your training… regardless of which phase of training you are in.
I can eat anything…i just rode 70+ miles! Right??
Here is a quote from one of my clients:
“…[thank] you for the help when we worked together …. My diet is significantly improved thanks to your guidance. I celebrate small victories like filling most of the shopping cart at the grocery store in the produce section! I remain hooked on smoothie concoctions for breakfast adding kale and a bunch of other good stuff. Lunch is the rainbow with raw
Client’s groceries with greens veggies! yeah 🙂
veggies, nuts and lean proteins. As my training continues to ramp up for season, i do make sure i am adding enough carbs but eating mostly whole fresh foods. Training is going well, i just PR’d half marathon at 1:29, and feel great.”
As I had posted the other day, eating better is a process. I just help make it easier.
I also posted the phases of sports nutrition and how those should match your training phases. If you increase the training, then you need to optimize the nutrition for that kind of training. You will eat balanced meals (healthy protein, healthy carbs, and lots of healthy green vegetables) every 3 hours. If you are doing more sprint and speed work, your
A balanced meal – healthy protein, healthy carb, lots of healthy greens!
nutrition will be different than when you are doing endurance and long, slow distance sessions. The more speed work, the more often you may need to eat and a focus on more protein vs carbs. For endurance training, you just eat the balanced meals as usual. When you are in your pre-race week, you don’t change your nutrition except for lowering the caloric intake to match the training expenditure. But you still eat your regular way – balance meals every 3 hours or so. You just might eat less frequently since you are training less! If you are constantly hungry or starving, we may need to work on that balance in meal combinations 🙂
I offer Race Day Nutrition Strategy sessions as well as a Race Day Nutrition Package consisting of the initial session with 3 x 30 minute follow up sessions. Either of these will help with your actual race, but the package will help to optimize your nutrient intake, change your body into a fat burning machine, and help you find shortcuts in making optimal meal combinations. It helps your nutrition match your training regardless of which phase you are in. I help you with the planning. I help with the meal content.
I help make it easier for you to do when traveling to races or out for business or with friends. Nutrition does not have to be that complicated. But your nutrition should match your training.
