Hello Runner,
Welcome back to your weekly moment of endurance nutrition!
Happy Weekend!
How are you today? I hope you’re fine!
Here I am victorious after another difficult week in my life, hahaha. Now I laugh, but when my anxiety was attacking, I just wanted to isolate myself and cry.
Well, for those who don't know, I suffer from an anxiety disorder. It's usually under control, but sometimes it gets out of control, and I suffer a lot.
I have a list of things I do to help ease the symptoms, but it doesn't always work (which was the case this past week).
Thank God there's always another day. By Thursday, I was feeling much better!
Even though I was experiencing some chaos, I made an effort not to miss training and got on with my work!
For a long time, I believed that I ate well.
After all, I'm a nutritionist. I study, read, research...
But I realized that theory couldn't handle practice when I started running more consistently.
My energy dropped out of nowhere. Recovery was slow. Performance stagnated.
That's when I realized: eating “clean” is not the same as eating for performance.
Today I want to tell you about the 3 biggest mistakes I made - and what I learned from each one.
MISTAKES
Mistake 1 - Eating too “clean” and not enough
I used to prepare super-healthy, colorful, balanced meals... but they lacked calories and carbs (our main energy source for running).
I lacked volume, energy, carbohydrates and accumulated fatigue.
What I've learned: healthy, low-calorie food isn't enough for those who need energy for performance and recovery. It needs to be enough for your training and your energy demand.
I'm not talking about ignoring a meal that's healthy and colorful (full of vitamins and minerals). But the runner's meal should provide energy as well as all the nutrients to improve performance and help the body recover in the best possible way.
Mistake 2 - Underestimating the recovery meal
I used to come home from long runs and just drink water or espresso (especially in the mornings), thinking that I was doing the right thing and that my body didn't need any nutrients to recover from the effort.
I lacked carbohydrates to replenish the energy and muscle glycogen that my body had depleted during the long run, protein to aid muscle recovery, and electrolytes to replenish the mineral salts that I lost through excessive sweating.
What I've learned: water and coffee alone won't do the trick. After a strenuous run, we need food (mainly carbs and protein) to replenish our bodies for our next workout. What's more, if you sweat a lot and lose minerals (especially sodium), you need to make sure you replenish them so you don't suffer from weakness and cramps.
Mistake 3 - Repeating the diet even with changes in weekly training
In the beginning, I repeated the same meals and quantities regardless of the training I was doing. It could be a 3k, 5k, or 15k run. I ate the same thing.
I lacked energy, volume, and nutrients. I suffered from GI issues and problems recovering after races.
What I've learned: you can't keep the same meals and the same amount of food for different workouts. On shorter runs, we don't need to eat as many carbohydrates as on longer runs, and we don't need to carb-load either.
For long runs, on the other hand, we need to keep our muscle glycogen stores full so that we don't end up hitting the wall during training.
Among other things that change, nutritional timing should be done according to your workouts and periods of the year.
Have you made any of these mistakes too? Tell me - I'd love to know.
And if you feel that something in your diet is still holding you back, but you don't know exactly what... I can help you find out. Reply to this e-mail with “I want to understand more”, and I'll explain how my 1:1 consultancy works.
Track of the week 🎧️
This week's Track of the Week is from a band that I've listened to a lot and should listen to again because I really like it!
This is perfect for a zone 2 or recovery run!
I've chosen the track Walk On by New U2.
Any questions or something you would like to share, drop me an email
Wishing you a great weekend and week ahead!
Here’s to health and good runs⚡️
Ana Paula Alonso