Competition nutrition: finding the winning combination to boost energy, performance and well-being

American Fitness, March-April, 1996 by V. Wade Contreras

You're going for that last intense burn set of leg presses in your quest to add bulk and cut fat--and find you're suddenly out of gas. You just can't go on. Perhaps you're a marathon runner and feel like you've hit a plateau and you'll never get your time down. Or maybe you just exercise for fun and health and want to maximize your energy. Whatever your situation, diet is a crucial factor in providing your body with the energy to be its best.

For men of the '90s, the exercise watchword seems to be "performance." If you're training hard and not seeing the results you want, maybe the place to look is your training diet. If your training table often ends up being the nearest taco or burger joint, it's time to get on a more performance-oriented diet. Strength trainers will insist they need extra calories, no matter what the source, to add extra muscle. But poor foods won't add the muscle. You need a healthy eating plan to give your body a winning edge.

Carbohydrates are an athlete's best friend, according to Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.d., R.D., and Maggie Greenwood-Robinson, authors of High Performance Nutrition: The Total Eating Plan to Maximize Your Workout (Wiley, $16.95) slated for a May release. Their major role is to provide energy, especially during exercise. The body utilizes ca-rbohydrates by breaking them down into blood glucose which is ushered into cells. Glucose can be converted to either liver or muscle glycogen (the storage form of carbohydrates). When you exercise, the body uses muscle glycogen for energy. But be careful, blood glucose can also turn into body fat if you eat more carbohydrates than you need.

There are two type of carbohydrates--complex and simple. Complex carbohydrates are in most plant foods, like cereal, pasta, fruits and vegetables. They contain essential nutrients, including fiber. Some simple carbohydrates, known as sugars, are in fruits and vegetables. Refined sugars, in candies and sweets, are considered "empty calories," which means they supply no nutrients other than calories. Limit these in your diet.

Kleiner, who's been a nutritional counselor for professional football teams, says 60-65% of our calories should come from carbohydrates. Strength trainers need even more. "To develop muscle, you must increase your calories, and the healthiest way to do that is to up your carbohydrate intake, not your protein or fat," she explains. The best way to increase complex carbohydrate intake is to eat more whole grain cereals and breads, pasta, rice, potatoes, yams and legumes. Kleiner also stresses the importance of loading up on carbohydrates during workouts by keeping a sports drink handy.

In strength training, short bursts of effort are needed, and carbohydrates supply about 95% of the fuel for this kind of exercise. However, in mild to moderate intensity aerobics, the fuel mix is about half carbohydrate, half fat. If you keep going for a long workout, your body can deplete stored carbohydrates for energy. So for long workouts, the performance edge goes to people who have the most glycogen stored, and therefore the people who eat the most carbohydrates.

One last note on carbohydrates. After exercise, your muscles are carbohydrate-hungry. You should eat in the first two hours following a workout to maximize recovery. Kleiner suggests fruited yogurt as a good snack because it's high in carbohydrates and contains enough protein for an even release of energy and optimal storage of glycogen.

Beyond carbohydrates, male athletes should know about fat and what it does to their bodies. Before you run cowering from the word that has been touted as the scourge of the nutritional universe, remember that fat is an essential nutrient. It helps form structures of cell membranes, regulate metabolism, and provides a source of energy for exercise. However, you should know which fats are better for you and how to watch your cholesterol.

There are several types of fat. You should limit saturated fat because it can raise cholesterol levels, which everyone knows leads to narrowing of the arteries and other bad consequences. We've all heard about the saturated fat offenders--beef, dairy products, and tropical oils like coconut, palm and palm kernel oils. Keep these to a minimum.

But enough of the nutritional hand slapping. More important is knowing what kinds of fat you can eat with a clean conscience (and clean arteries), because this seems to be where confusion arises. Unsaturated fats are better for you, and there are two kinds--polyunsaturated and monounsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats are vegetable oils such as safflower, sunflower, corn, soybean and cottonseed oil. They actually cut cholesterol, but they cut the "good" cholesterol you want in your body, too. Also, Kleiner says researchers have discovered a correlation between diets high in polyunsaturated fat and a greater risk of cancer.

So we're left with monounsaturated fats. The majority of researchers a-re claiming this is the healthiest fat. As proof of this, Kleiner points to the Eskimos and Greeks. "Even though their diets are high in total fat, their incidence of heart disease is low compared to Americans," says Kleiner. "Scientists have ascertained why. The predominant fat in both cultures is monounsaturated--one from fish, the other from' olives." Monounsaturated fats seem to lower bad cholesterol but maintain higher levels of good cholesterol. So the latest advice seems to be stick to olive, canola, peanut, and fish oils, all monounsaturated sources.