subject: Nutrition Basics For Triathletes [print this page] Becoming a triathlete requires an understanding of not only how nutrition works, but also which foods you need to stay healthy, improve your fitness, aid your training, and achieve your goals. To train, race and perform your daily tasks, your body uses two types of fuel: fats and carbohydrates.
Fats or carbohydrates?
Fat is an abundant fuel, with even the leanest of athletes having over 20,000 calories in their fat stores. This slow-burn, large-capacity fuel allows us to be active for many hours or survive many days without food. The average sedentary person has more fat stored in their body than an active athlete because the former eats more than they need to survive. Excess fat is evidence of previous meals that have been surplus to requirement and stored for periods of famine - an evolutionary mechanism.
When intensity is low to moderate, fat contributes a moderate proportion of the overall calories being used. Conversely, carbohydrates are the first choice of fuel used by muscles for the first 10-20 minutes when starting exercise or working at higher intensities, such as climbing a tough hill or running fast enough to make you breathe heavily. Yet, whilst fat stores can grow indefinitely as a fuel for 'later on', we only have around one-and-a-half to two hours' worth of carbohydrates in our muscles, called glycogen, when we are fully stocked up or 'carbo-loaded'.
Working at high intensities quickly uses this fragile carbohydrate fuel reserve which may require 24-48 hours to be fully restored again. So whilst you won't run out of fat you can run low on carbs. Very low glycogen in muscles means slow training, low morale low and an insatiable appetite.
Knowing you have limited glycogen and teaching your body to use fats better are key concepts to understand. They dictate that much of your training will be steady, but sometimes extra sports nutrition carbohydrate products should be used to improve your training and racing.
Protein
Protein from foods such as meat, eggs, milk, fish and tofu contains the essential building blocks that are needed to recover and build an athletic body. You do not have to over-eat protein, as was once thought, but regular small amounts throughout the day provide an ideal delivery of building blocks.
Top Tip
A varied, healthy diet that includes regular healthy meals and occasional treats and meals out is a good balance that will provide lots of different nutrients and a healthy attitude towards food.
