Brought to you by Darrin Roy Freitas, Food For Power Consultant & Trek Volunteer. If you would like more suggestions from Darrin, please let us know and we will put you in contact with him.
Recommendation: Starting 48 hours prior to your event, minimize the amount of fat in your diet. Be sure not to consume any carbohydrates or supplements which you are not used to digesting (stick to things that you’ve already had experience with in training) as this will only increase the risk of gastric distress (diarrhea). Your daily caloric intake should consist of at least 60-70% carbohydrates. Drink lots of water! Minimize, or even better, eliminate any diuretics including caffeine.
Example: Let’s say your “standard” dinner includes two chicken breasts with brown rice, salad, and a Coke. Before your big activity, try substituting one chicken breast for a cup of pasta and the Coke for 2 large glasses of water or pre-activity drink (keep the salad and rice).
During Exercise (and 2 hours prior)
Hopefully you have taken the “BEFORE exercise” recommendations above and fueled your body properly with carbohydrates and water. If you did not, you can minimize your losses with the following recommendations, but realize that it is too late to optimize your fuel stores.
Prior to exercise your body is capable of storing, within the muscle cell, high levels of glycogen and water. Two hours prior to exercise you may want to ‘top off’ those levels to assure maximum performance (at this point be sure to only use carbohydrates with a Low Glycemic Index slow digesting. Consuming slow digesting carbohydrates immediately before exercise will help stabilize blood sugar, so that your body burns fat instead of glucose or glycogen. This allows your body to spare its carbohydrates so you can exercise longer before you bonk or hit the wall! Note: Antioxidants prior to exercise can also reduce delayed onset muscle soreness from exhaustive exercise.
Recommendation: Two hours prior to exercise consume about 0.45-1.0 grams per pound of body weight. In addition consume 8oz water for every 50 pounds body weight. About 30 minutes prior to exercise, again consume slow digesting carbs and water – but only at about 1 gram of carbs and 1oz of water per 10 pounds of body weight. Some athletes like to snack on slow digesting foods and water for the entire 2 hours before the activity.
1 cup of cooked pasta = roughly 30 grams of carbs
1 cup brown rice = 44.8 grams carbs
1 cup white rice = 43.3 grams carbs
Instant Oatmeal, Quaker, 1 packet = 31.1 grams carbs
Example : 2 hours prior: Eat ½ cup dried apricots, glass of skim milk and rice bran with 24oz of water.
For the first hour of the activity be sure to consume at least 4oz of water every 15 minutes or so. If you can stomach it, and have been training like this, you can go ahead and use your carbohydrate drink (such as Accelerade, SURGE, Cytomax, Gatorade, Perform, etc…). After about an hour into the activity, be sure to switch exclusively to a carbohydrate drink. At this point you are trying to spare your stored muscle glycogen, by offering your body some oral carbohydrates. A combination of high glycemic and low glycemic carbohydrates (50/50 split) works best at a concentration of less than 7%. Concentrations higher than 7% can delay gastric emptying. In other words, you cannot digest the carbohydrates and water quick enough, and it becomes a detriment. Be sure that the sports drink that you consume contains adequate levels of sodium, calcium, potassium and chloride which help to replace electrolyte losses and provide energy.
During your activity, ideally use Accelerade, SURGE, Gatorade, PowerBar’s Perform drink (or similar beverage) – but only if you have been using this during your training (or train with the sponsored activity drink).
REMEMBER: NEVER TRY ANYTHING NEW ON ACTIVITY DAY!!!!!
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