Eating healthy to stay fit

Repeated efforts, in training and in the succession of events, require good nutrition management. To pedal or run faster, you must not only consume fuel, but also know how to consume it while remaining light. This is why the content of the plate quickly becomes one of the major concerns of cyclists or triathletes.

What is a balanced diet?

The main difficulty in balancing your diet is to provide essential elements while taking into account calories expended on the road, foods to avoid, and the search for the best power-to-weight ratio for performance. On a bike or running, athletes must constantly fight against their own weight. Overweight in any endurance sport leads to greater energy expenditure during exercise and reduced motor skills.

Beyond this obvious aspect, the food intake must avoid waste likely to rust the machine. The liver, along with the heart, is the primary organ to preserve. Its engorgement during effort is synonymous with heavy legs, a feeling of thirst, shortness of breath, and poor assimilation of truly useful foods. Foods to avoid or limit are those that are difficult to digest, such as cooked fats, cured meats, fried foods, alcohol mixtures, poor quality chocolate, or pastries.

A balanced caloric intake consists of:

15% protein (meat, fish, vegetable protein)
30% fat (fatty substances)
55% carbohydrates (slow and fast sugars found in bread, pasta, rice, semolina, fruits, vegetables, etc.).

As for vitamins and minerals, they are found in the variety of foods chosen.

The amount of food to absorb during a day depends on each individual, their gender, age, constitution, but above all on the amount of activity provided.

TO REMEMBER:

Trained and fit athletes have a higher basal metabolism than sedentary people. For the same resting weight, a muscular body consumes more calories than a body with more fat.

Basal metabolism is the amount of energy an individual needs to survive, at complete muscular rest, at a neutral temperature of 20°C, and to ensure cellular maintenance. This basic expenditure is proportional to body surface area. On average, it is about 1500 calories per day for a man, and 1200 calories for a woman.

Cycling or running, depending on the intensity at which they are practiced, burn 350 to 900 calories per hour.

To this energy already burned, we must add the energy necessary for various daily activities or living conditions (e.g., climatic). This explains needs that vary from 2500 calories per day for an active person, to 6000 calories per day for a Tour de France rider. Cycling or running, depending on the intensity at which they are practiced, burn 350 to 900 calories per hour.

The notion of dietary balance is therefore found at all stages of food intake, through a relationship between the qualities of foods, their variety, and the balance between consumption and expenditure.

The first step towards taking charge of your diet is to recognize the original family of foods. Carbohydrates? Lipids? Proteins? A recognition all the more difficult as our modern diet is full of hidden fats, which unbalance the ration to the detriment of truly useful elements.

TO REMEMBER:

To lose weight, you need to tip the balance towards calorie deficits… You need to burn more calories than you consume.

Carbohydrates

They provide the energy necessary for the functioning of the brain and muscles, ensuring constant blood sugar levels. Carbohydrates differ from each other by their assimilation speed (or what is called the Glycemic Index).

Slow sugars diffuse slowly into the body and provide long-lasting energy. They are supplied by pasta, rice, semolina, and all starches in general, as well as by some vegetables, but in a smaller weight/calorie proportion.
Fast sugars are assimilated more quickly and are intended to meet more direct needs (before a violent effort, for example). It is better to limit fast sugars, at least outside of sports activities, because as they quickly enter the blood, if they are not used, they are stored as superfluous fat. They can cause what is called a glycemic peak, especially if consumed in isolation outside of a meal or effort, i.e., a big surge of energy followed by a feeling of weakness close to hunger pangs. They should not represent more than a quarter of the total carbohydrate intake.

There are some exceptions, such as foods that transform according to the preparation method. Example: potatoes turn into fast sugars if mashed or pureed, but remain a slow sugar in their usual form. Or pasta, which if overcooked, sees its glycemic index increase, and therefore transforms into fast sugars.

As for energy reserves, carbohydrates cannot be stored beyond 400 to 500 g in the body. Each gram of carbohydrate stored in the muscles or liver and intended to provide the necessary fuel for an effort (for example: what is called carbohydrate storage before an effort or a big event) is accompanied by the storage of 4 g of water. It is therefore useless to weigh yourself every day or several times a day, at the risk of noticing significant variations, which are completely normal.

TO REMEMBER:

At the end of a meal, a fast sugar transforms into a slow sugar thanks to the glycemic index (and the mixture in the food bolus). Conversely, it is better to avoid consuming fast sugars outside of meals (except during exercise). They eventually transform into reserve fat if their energy is not consumed.

Lipids

Fat reserves are present in considerable quantities in the body, even in very lean individuals. They are used as fuel in low-intensity activities. We should not eliminate them from our diet because they play a very important structural role in the nervous system and in the supply of certain essential vitamins.

Fats play a very important structural role in the nervous system and in the supply of certain essential vitamins.

30% of the calories to be consumed should be in the form of lipids. But beware, 1 g of lipid represents 9 calories, compared to 4 calories for the same amount of carbohydrates and proteins. Concretely, if you are monitoring your diet, take this calculation into account to avoid overestimating your lipid consumption. To cover needs, fats of animal and vegetable origin are distributed.

In animal fats, we find those contained in meats, cheese, butter for example, or more directly cured meats. This type of fat contains saturated fatty acids, the excess of which is still unknown regarding health.
Fats of vegetable origin come from oils provided by oilseeds: sunflower oil, peanut oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil, corn oil, walnut oil, or grape seed oil. These fats contain unsaturated fatty acids, which tend to lower cholesterol levels. Some also contain omega 3 (rapeseed, walnut, or soybean oils) whose effects are beneficial for health.

The improvement of physical condition linked to regular training and the body’s adaptations makes it possible to push back the threshold (in intensity, power, heart rate) from which the limited glycogen reserves provided by carbohydrates are used in favor of the almost unlimited fat reserves.

TO REMEMBER:

Read the labels of the foods consumed carefully. Some are sources of hidden fats. 1 g of lipid is 9 calories, compared to 4 for carbohydrates and proteins.

.Proteins

Meats, eggs, fish, or dairy products, sources of protein, are sometimes neglected in the daily diet. An intake of 15% of calories in the form of protein is essential because it is the building block of muscle. Insufficiency leads to muscle mass loss and a deficit in amino acids, essential for recovery and muscle contraction. However, an excess represents a significant source of waste, harmful to the liver and kidneys. The proportion of protein from animals should be equivalent to that from plants (soy, legumes, cereals, etc.).

Vitamins

While they do not provide calories, vitamins are nonetheless essential for the proper functioning of the body, by intervening in all metabolic reactions of our cells. All vitamins have a different and well-defined role. Contrary to what some athletes believe, an excess intake does not improve performance in any way.

TO REMEMBER:

Do not neglect fiber intake (bread, vegetables) to optimize intestinal transit.

Minerals and trace elements

The main minerals (calcium, magnesium, sodium, etc.) and the main trace elements (iron, zinc, iodine, etc.) are present in the body in varying quantities and all have a well-defined function. Often linked to water intake, their presence ensures a balance in the composition of the skeleton and nervous and muscular excitability. It is therefore necessary to ensure, in the interest of good management of daily, pre-competition or recovery nutrition, the intake of all these elements, in addition to good control of caloric intake.

Rest assured, overall dietary balance is rarely achieved in one meal. The important thing is above all to avoid the most obvious mistakes, and to vary what you eat as much as possible.

-> SEE ALSO: All our Coaching articles