Eating for Endurance A Primal Approach!
For endurance athletes on PRIMAL DIETS, it’s NOT about PASTA and POTATO’s but rather the RATIO OF NUTRIENTS necessary to sustain long-haul performance and speed up recovery. Nutrient dense foods are emphasized with a focus on essential fats and unprocessed carbohydrates such as banana’s, sweet potato’s and dates.
A primal approach forgoes the typical pitfalls associated with eating for endurance including energy spikes and the frequency of required replenishment in order to meet the high-fuel demands of prolonged exercise. Where simple carbs are utilized quickly and therefor in need of refueling often, essential fats sustain the metabolism longer, extending performance and recovery time (particularly beneficial for optimizing recovery during sleep - a time of lengthy fast).
In ‘The Paleo Diet Cookbook’ Dr. Loraine Cordain author of ‘The Paleo Diet‘ with Nell Stephenson a triathlete and performance nutritionist, present a collection of recipes with a variety of alternative pre/post meal options for the long distance advocate. Insightful and inspiring, the background information on ingredients equip readers with a better knowledge of nutrition and a plethora of delicious dishes to replace previous fuel choices for prepackaged and highly processed foods.
More than 150 recipes for Paleo breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks and beverages - every meal an opportunity to support good health and performance through quality well-balanced nutrition.
Excerpt from The Paleo Diet Cookbook courtesy of Wiley Publishing Treats and Meals for CrossFitters and Athletes
For athletes and very active people, a few necessary tweaks are required to the Paleo Diet to help you maximize performance. Although Joe Friel and I have written extensively about these slight adjustments in my second book, The Paleo Diet for Athletes, I’ll emphasize some of the key points you need to keep in mind as you prepare your meals and snacks.
The basic rules of the game—lean meats, seafood, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts, and healthy oils—still apply. However, to fuel your muscles for long runs, swims, bicycle rides, and other hard workouts, you will need to eat concentrated carbohydrate sources to refuel muscle glycogen, particularly before and after workouts.
Yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, dried fruit, fruit juices, very high sugar and high sugar fresh fruits (see chapter 1) are great sources of concentrated starches and sugars. Unlike refined grains, they are net alkaline-yielding, thereby preventing the loss of the amino acid glutamine from your bloodstream, which helps to preserve your muscle mass.
In the post-exercise period, besides consuming concentrated sugars and starches, make sure that you get plenty of lean protein. This is your best source of the three branched-chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine) that directly stimulate muscle growth and regeneration. Listed on page 227 are the total branched-chain amino acid concentrations in 1,000-calorie servings of common foods.
Food
Dried egg white Raw egg white Whey protein Lean meat Soy protein
Hard-boiled egg Milk
Beans
Fresh vegetables Whole grains
Nuts and seeds
Starchy root vegetables Fruits
Total Branched-Chain Amino Acids (Grams) (84% protein) 43.4 (80% protein) 35.4 (70% protein) 32.9 12.1 7.7 4.6 0.8
43.0 33.6 13.3 11.9 6.1 1.7
Obviously, I don’t recommend concentrated whey or soy proteins, milk, beans, or whole grains as sources of branched-chain amino acids, because these are non-Paleo foods that adversely affect your health and well-being. If you don’t have an allergy to eggs or an autoimmune disease, egg whites added to fresh fruit smoothies make ideal post-exercise drinks. These delicious drinks are concentrated sources of branched-chain amino acids, and the easily digestible, blended fruits rapidly restore your muscle glycogen.
Notice that small amounts of salt are included in a number of recipes in this chapter. Adding small quantities of salt to your meals and snacks is perfectly acceptable for hardworking athletes, who may lose excessive salt in their sweat.
A final note: I don’t recommend potatoes for anyone, athletes included, because they are not only high-glycemic-load foods but also concentrated sources of two saponins (alpha chaconine and alpha solanine) that compromise the intestinal barrier.
B E
NUTRITION
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