Hello fitness peeps, This week a guide to what and when to eat to exercise most efficiently. What to eat to get the most out of your exercise, and when to eat it! PRE-WORKOUT MEALS: 2-4 HOURS BEFORE EXERCISE Wholegrain Sandwich/bagel/roll/wrap filled with skinless chicken, fish, salad or peanut butter. Wholegrain cereal with Jacket potato with beans, tuna, coleslaw or chicken. Pasta with tomato sauce (wholegrain spaghetti is good). Brown or wild Rice with chicken, fish or vegetables. skimmed or Soya milk. Rice/oat cakes with marmite or cucumber. Or PRE-WORKOUT SNACKS: 1-2 HOURS BEFORE EXERCISE. Fresh fruit. BANANAS. Dried organic apricots or sultanas. (Watch out! Some dried fruit contains sulphur dioxide a preservative linked with bowel cancers, avoid by reading the packet or choosing organic). Smoothie. Yoghurt. Dilute fruit juice. Fruit loaf or raisin bread. AFTER YOUR WORKOUT To help your body recover from the workout and repair muscle and increase bone density you need to treat it well after exercising. This will ensure that next time you work out you will be able to work to your full potential and so improve your health and fitness, and lower body fat. 1. Drink water regularly. 2. Replace your carbohydrates e.g. Snack on rice cakes or have a pasta salad for lunch or tea. 3. Eat some protein eg oily fish. Add some salmon or chicken to that pasta salad. 4. Stock up on anti-oxidants. Eat as many different coloured fruit and vegetables as possible, have a fruit salad or a mango smoothie. Blueberries are a high scoring antioxidant food, as are all berries, and prunes. Spinach, broccoli, peppers and beetroot are high-scoring vegetables. If you want to get fitter or you are exercising for weight loss you must eat the right things. You cannot burn the fat or exercise to your full potential if you haven't eaten balanced meals incorporating carbohydrate, protein, fruit and vegetables and small amounts of good fats (e.g. Oily fish, pumpkin seeds, olive oil, Flax (linseed oil), avocados). Eating enough healthy carbohydrates will allow you to exercise hard enough to improve fitness and burn fat; it may also give you the oomph that you need to get to the class! Missing a meal before you exercise will leave you flat and unable to keep up. Your body will not burn fat and may turn to burning hard-earned muscle. If you are constantly on the run, keep water, bananas and dried fruit and nuts in a bag or in the car and these can be used to re-fuel. If you are an early morning exerciser and go out for an early run, class or exercise session, then you may not have time to eat before you leave. To combat this problem, eat an evening meal which contains complex carbohydrates such as bran, oats, brown rice, boiled potatoes, and steamed vegetables. This should help in the morning. You may also benefit from having a glass of dilute fresh fruit juice before you leave. Keep your eyes peeled for trans-fatty acids by looking on food labels. They may be marked as shortening, hydrogenated oil/fat, partly hydrogenated oil/fat. These have no nutritional value and have been linked with heart disease, diabetes, lowered immune defence, lowered amounts of cream' in breast feeding mothers, raised bad' cholesterol and lowered good' cholesterol, they can stop the good work of omega oils which are essential to our health, and they do lots of other nasty things. The US Institute of Medicine suggests that we aim to remove them from our diet altogether. I hope that this is of interest to you as part of your health and fitness plan- Vikki. Do you have any friends and family who could benefit from getting fitter and feeling better? If you do, then treat them to free copy of this newsletter, forward it to them, and get them to e-mail me with a request. E-mail getfitter@yahoo.co.uk subject: newsletter request. |
