I know that this is something I am always harping on about, but proper fueling and recovery are important. Not only for performance, but also our health.
We can't be constantly under fueling our bodies. If we do that they break themselves down to get the evergy needed. This is not healthy.
There is a new understanding of the importance of fueling. We now have access to plenty of resources to help us make good decisions. A great one is this free online app to track within-day energy balance.
Below is an illustration of what my within-day energy balance looks like on a day that I did a 4-hour Zwift ride, mixing endurance and tempo efforts.
Here is how things look having finished the 4-hour ride. Despite a good breakfast and in-ride fueling I am way below the energy balance target (the goal is to stay within the yellow and green bands).
And to illustrate how much eating is required to return to energy balance I built out a scenario below, eating quite a bit each hour for 3-hours after the ride, plus dinner.
While this might be a particularly big day it is surprising how much energy is required even for shorter days. Here is an relatively easy mountain bike ride, with quite a bit of fueling around it. It takes focus to get enough energy.
Where things get interesting with the fueling is how timing is so important, but that is another blog post. Just keep in mind that you want to focus your eating in and around your workout - that is when your body will use and on-board the energy with minimal cost.
The reason I point this out is to consider whether you are chronically under-fueling and under-recovering. And how that has a cumulative, knock-on effect, day after day.
We are all looking to perform, and be healthy. We can't do either properly without paying attention to our eating.
If you are looking for a more robust way to track your intake take a look at the Hexis app.
Other useful resources:
Huberman podcast: Dr Stacy Sims Female specific exercise and nutrition for health, performance and longevity. - while this may be woman specific here recommendations around fueling make good sense for all of us.
コメント