As athletes are making their training plans, there is one often overlooked component: the runner’s diet. You can get yourself the best training plan around and follow it to fidelity. You can also do strength training and get adequate rest. However, if what you put on your plate is garbage, you are sabotaging yourself.
If you are truly hoping to get the most you can out of your training, you should be careful and meticulous about what you put in your body. While there are differing schools of thought regarding an athlete’s nutrition, there are some basic things you can do to help bolster your personal nutrition. Today we will be discussing a half marathon diet.
Keep yourself adequately hydrated on your runs with our Water Bottle, or take your favourite energy gel nutrition in our Run Belt...
One thing is for certain; you may quickly learn that certain food fuels your body and runs better than others. If you’re sedentary on the couch, a diet of pizza and potato chips might be perfectly fine for you. When you start racking up miles and working hard day after day, week after week, your body will ask you to pay better attention to it.
If you are hoping to hit a personal record (PR) and asking your body to perform to the best of your ability, you absolutely need to think about your fuel on a daily basis.
The very first thing you should do is commit to putting more real food in your diet. Tempting though it is to eat convenience foods, these are not likely to put you in the best position for greater health.
Think about food in its most natural form. What that means is eating as much food as you can of food without processing.
✓ Lean Meats: If you eat meat, your meats should be from real meat sources. Lean beef, pork, chicken and fish are great choices. You should stay away from heavily processed meats such as sausages and lunch meats.
✓ Fresh Vegetables: Veggies are an excellent dietary choice and the more they look like they did when they came from the garden, the better off you will be. Vegetables are best consumed raw. The next obvious choice is lightly steamed and it is great if they have never been frozen or processed in any way. When choosing your vegetables, be sure to add color to your life. We will discuss color later on.
✓ Fruit: Keeping an assortment of fruits on hand gives you a healthy option for curbing that sweet tooth. Sure, candy and cakes are delicious; however, they are also full of empty calories with no nutritional value. Try freezing a bunch of grapes and grabbing a few when you get a sweet craving.
✓ Real Grains: Many runners eat pasta and whole-grain breads as staples for fueling their bodies, especially as you get up into mileage. If you are eating grains in their purest form, such as quinoa or steel-cut oats, you are getting way more bang for your buck.
✓ Healthy Fats: Contrary to everything you have heard, fats are not the enemy. That is if you are eating fish like salmon, nuts and cooking with olive oil. These types of fats are excellent for your body and great sources of energy.
