What Athletes Need To Know About Diet and Supplementation To Optimize Their Performance and Health - Part 1

I want to focus my discussion this week on athletes and nutrition since I continue to receive questions by athletes who want to know how to optimize performance. If you are an athlete, understanding how the body uses food as fuel can help you eat and train efficiently so you can improve performance.

Optimizing performance starts with an understanding of how the three fundamental macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, and protein) fuel the body to do work. In the body, these nutrients get converted to energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). As ATP is broken down in cells, energy is released which allows muscle cells to contract and exercise to be performed. However, each nutrient has unique properties that determine how it gets converted to ATP.

Carbohydrate is the main nutrient that fuels exercise of a moderate to high-intensity (like sprinting and weight-lifting). Fat helps to fuel lower-intensity exercise for long periods of time (like marathon running). Proteins are generally used to maintain and repair body tissues, and are not normally used to fuel muscle activity.

With that said, let's now lay out the amount of each nutrient that is recommended in the diet for optimal performance. Sports nutritionists recommend the following mix of nutrients:

• 55-65% of daily calories from CARBOHYDRATE
• 25-30% of daily calories from FAT
• 12-15% of daily calories from PROTEIN

Your specific nutrition plan should be structed to meet your training needs, with the understanding that carbohydrates are the primary fuel needed for intense muscular efforts, regardless of the sport you play.

Now let's discuss carbs, fats, and protein in more detail.

And since carbohydrates are the cornerstone of an athlete's diet, let's discuss them first.


CARBOHYDRATES (carbs):

Irregardless of the sport you play, carbs provide the energy that fuels muscle contractions. When you eat carbs, they are broken down in the body into smaller sugars, and if needed, they get absorbed and used as energy. Any sugar (also known as glucose) not needed right away gets stored in your muscles and liver in the form of glycogen. Once these glycogen stores are full, any additional glycogen gets stored as fat.

If you haven't heard the term glycogen before, understand that it is the source of energy most often used for exercise. It is most often used because your body can tap into it immediately when needed for shorter-duration, higher-intensity exercise like sprinting and weight-lifting. Glycogen actually supplies energy during the first few minutes of any sport. During longer-duration, lower-intensity exercise, fat can help to fuel activity, but glycogen is still needed to help break down the fat into something the muscles can use.

Not only is adequate carbohydrate intake necessary to fuel activity, but it also helps to prevent protein from being used as energy. If your body doesn’t have enough carbohydrate, protein is broken down to make glucose for energy. But this takes away from protein's primary role of being the building block for muscles, bone, skin, hair, and other tissues. Relying on protein for energy, by not taking in enough carbohydrate, can limit your ability to build and maintain important tissues. Furthermore, it can stress the kidneys because they have to work harder to eliminate the by-products of this protein breakdown.

Carbs also have other functions in the body, which include fueling the central nervous system and brain.

Well now that you understand the importance of carbs, you may be wondering how much energy carbs actually give you. One gram of carbohydrate will provide you with four calories of energy. For an understanding of the specific number of carbohydrate calories YOU need daily as an athlete, as well as the total calories you need daily, please refer to my blog article What You Need To Know About Calories?

When considering carbs, it's important to understand the terms "carbohydrate loading" and "carbohydrate depletion" which refers to your body's ability to store and use carbohydrate energy in your muscles.

Eating large amounts of carbohydrates will increase carbohydrate stores, which is known as carbohydrate loading, but there is a storage limit. The maximum amount of carbohydrate you can store in your body is about 6.8 grams per pound of body weight. So, if you weigh 200 pounds, you can store up to 1,364 grams of carbohydrate [or 5,455 calories] in your muscles, which is enough energy to fuel high-intensity exercise for several hours.

During depletion, any stored carbohydrate is used up. If you don’t replenish these carbohydrate stores, you can run out of fuel for exercise that requires immediate energy. When this happens, it is referred to in the athletic world as "bonking" or "hitting the wall."

How long the energy supply from carbohydrate lasts depends on the length and intensity of the exercise. To avoid running out of energy during exercise, START with full glycogen stores, replenish them DURING exercise, and refill them AFTER exercise to be ready for the next workout.

One final word on carbohydrates:  Carbs are divided into TWO TYPES - simple and complex.

Simple carbohydrates are absorbed and converted to energy very quickly and provide a rapid source of energy. Fruit and sports drinks are a good source of simple carbohydrates.

Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, typically take a bit longer to be digested and absorbed into the body. They also typically take longer to break down and therefore provide energy at a slower rate than simple sugars. Examples of complex carbohydrates include breads, rice and pasta. Starch and fiber are also considered complex carbohydrates but fiber can not be digested or used for energy. Starch is probably the most important energy source in an athlete’s diet because it is broken down and stored as glycogen. Foods high in starch include whole grain breads, cereals, pasta, and grains.

But understand that even some complex carbohydrates, like a white potato, can provide a rapid source of energy.

Now let's turn our attention to the importance of fat in an athlete's diet.


FAT:

Contrary to popular belief, not all fat is bad. In fact, the right types of fat are essential for optimal performance and health.

In addition, the stored fat we carry on our bodies (known as adipose tissue) provides cushion and insulation to internal organs, covers the nerves, moves the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) throughout the body, and provides the largest reserve of stored energy available for activity. Fat is stored when we consume more calories then we use.

There is an optimal level of body fat for health and for athletic activity. When this optimal level is exceeded, too much dietary fat can lead to problems with health as well as athletic performance.

Let's take a look at the three different types of dietary fat that exist:

• Unsaturated fats include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (the healthier fats) and are typically found in plant sources. This type of fat is usually liquid at room temperature. Unsaturated fats have health benefits such as lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart disease. Common food sources include olive and canola oil, avocados, fish, almonds, soybeans and flaxseed. An important class of fats that contribute to improved athletic performance and improved health include the polyunsaturated fats known as omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids. These healthy fats can be found in some foods such as certain types of fish, but they are also available in supplements for those that don't obtain enough of them in their diet. But learning how to select a quality supplement that contains them is important. If you would like help in learning how to identify a quality supplement, please feel free to send me a message.

• Saturated fats are found primarily in animal sources like meat, egg yolks, yogurt, cheese, butter, and milk. This type of fat is often solid at room temperature. The over-consumption of saturated fat has been linked to numerous health problems such as high cholesterol and heart disease. Consequently, saturated fat should be limited to no more than 10% of your total daily calorie intake.

• Trans fatty acids, or trans fats, are created (naturally or man-made) when an unsaturated fat is made into a solid. Trans fats, just like saturated fat, should be limited as much as possible because they increase cholesterol levels and they increase the risk of heart disease.

So how does fat provide energy for athletes? Fat provides the highest concentration of energy of all the nutrients. One gram of fat gives you nine calories. This calorie density, along with our great storage capacity for fat, makes fat our largest reserve of energy. One pound of stored fat provides approximately 3,500 calories of potential energy. While these calories are less accessible to athletes performing shorter-duration, higher-intensity exercise like sprinting and weight-lifting, fat is essential for longer-duration, lower to moderate-intensity endurance exercise (from walking to marathons).

But remember, even during higher-intensity exercise, where carbohydrate is the main fuel source, fat is still needed to help access the stored carbohydrate (glycogen).

Also remember these three things when using fat for fuel for exercise. First, it can take up to six hours to digest fat to a point where it can be converted into a usable form of energy. Secondly, converting stored body fat into energy also takes time. The body needs to break down fat and transport it to the working muscles before it can be used as energy. And third, converting stored body fat into energy takes substantial oxygen, so exercise intensity must decrease for this process to occur.

For these reasons, you need to carefully time when you eat fat, how much you eat, and the type of fat you eat. In general, it’s not a good idea to eat fat immediately before or during intense exercise.

For more information on fat, read my blog articles entitled FATS: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and FATS: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - Part 2.

Now let's move on to the importance of protein in an athlete's diet.


PROTEIN:

Proteins are often called the building blocks of the body because they contain amino acids which combine in various ways to make muscles, bone, tendons, skin, hair, and other tissues. They serve other functions as well, like moving nutrients to where they belong and aiding in the production of enzymes. You might be surprised to learn that there are over 10,000 different proteins in the body.

Athletes need protein primarily to repair and rebuild muscle that is broken down during exercise, as well as to help optimize carbohydrate storage in the form of glycogen. Protein isn’t an ideal source of fuel for exercise, but it can be used when the diet lacks adequate carbohydrate. A problem is created, however, if protein is used for fuel because it doesn't leave enough available to repair and rebuild body tissues, including muscle.

Adequate amounts of protein, eaten regularly, is essential because it isn’t easily stored by the body. And athletes have to be aware that there are two kinds of protein. Foods that include protein can contain "complete proteins" or "incomplete proteins". Complete proteins contain all nine of the essential amino acids, and they come mostly from animal sources such as meat, fish, and eggs. Soybeans are also considered a complete protein. Incomplete proteins lack one or more of the essential amino acids, and they come from sources such as grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables.

Vegetarian athletes can have trouble obtaining complete proteins, so they have to pay careful attention to how they combine foods so they get adequate protein. Foods that contain incomplete proteins can be matched with other foods to create complete proteins. As an example, rice is low in the essential amino acid lysine, and beans are low in the essential amino acid methionine. By eating rice with beans, you improve (or complete) the proteins in both.

While protein is extremely important, most athletes in a strength sport get far more protein than is necessary to promote muscle synthesis. The current protein recommendation for athletes is as follows:

• ENDURANCE ATHLETES: About 0.5 to 0.6 grams per pound of body weight per day.

• STRENGTH-TRAINING ATHLETES: About 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight per day.

So for an endurance athlete weighing 200 pounds, he/she would need 100 to 120 grams of protein per day. And for a strength training athlete weighing 200 pounds, he/she would need 140 to 160 grams of protein per day.

There is no scientific evidence that more than about 0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight has any additional benefit in muscle strength or size.

One final word on protein:  According to research, high protein/high fat diets can hurt performance. An inadequate amount of carbohydrate in the diet can result in reduced muscle glycogen stores in the muscle and liver, decreased endurance, decreased maximal effort, decreased serum glucose levels, and an increased risk of hypoglycemia.

Additionally, high protein/high fat diets can also have a negative overall impact on health in general, such as an increased risk of degenerative diseases like heart disease and cancer, increased calcium excretion leading to an increased risk of osteoporosis, and a reduced intake of vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals contributing to fatigue and an increased risk of disease.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of how the three fundamental macronutrients (carbs, fat, and protein) work together to fuel your body to achieve optimal performance in your sport.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of "What Athletes Need To Know About Diet and Supplementation To Optimize Their Performance and Health" where I discuss more about how athletes should eat while training, the importance of a high-quality multivitamin/multimineral supplement, and the type of third-party testing companies should pass before selecting a supplement made by that company.