Grains and glycemic load 

Eat high GI carbohydrates, including grains only if you’ve exercised. Eat low GI carbs and keep grains to a minimum the rest of the time.

Grains, particularly wheat, can make getting lean difficult due to additional detrimental effects associated with intolerances. Wheat can lead to water retention and digestive bloating and sluggish digestion. It’s not uncommon to eat a wheat based cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner – and even some biscuits in between. Keep wheat and other grain intake to times when you’ve trained or to fuel-intensive training. It’s worth taking a look at your overall wheat burden.

Eat slowly

Ok, your eating is spot on, you eat good quality and adequate protein, loads of vegetables and essential fats and your frequency of feeding and hydration is perfect. What’s the problem?

You eat too quickly and as a result you eat too much. This is very common among larger athletes, particularly those in the strength or power dominated events, and can thwart an otherwise sound nutrition and training plan.

Even if you are eating all the right ratio of low GL macronutrients, if you eat too much you’ll still get a rise in insulin and store the excess as fat. To change this try to:

• Put less food on your plate.
• Chew food properly.  Don’t put another forkful in until you’ve finished the first one.
• Put your fork down between each mouthful; this is hard but begins the process of slowing down eating.
• Try not to eat when doing something else like watching T.V; you’ll eat more and won’t be conscious of what you are eating.
• Plan meals to be sociable; taking time to have family all present at the table in the evening and discussing the day is helpful for relationships and it’ll be good for your body composition too.
• Stop eating once you are no longer hungry, and stop eating if you get more thirsty than hungry.
• If you find this really difficult, then you can drip feed your calories before the meal (while cooking) through eating raw veggies and/or starting your meals with soup.

These strategies take the edge off of hunger and result in fewer calories being consumed in the main meal.

Flex

Yes flex as often as possible. Flexing your nutrition to fit your training is crucial to maintaining performance and staying lean.

In simple terms you eat according to what you are going to do in the next 3 hours or what you have just done. Many athletes eat the same day in day out, and they recover the same for all sessions – this approach is flawed as some days they will over recover and some days they won’t eat enough to recover. This is very true of the transition from pre-season to in season training when appetite remains but training volume drops off. It’s also particularly true on rest days, where many athletes fail to keep to regular meals and can quite often under eat at these times.

• Eat more following intensive training session and less following less intensive training sessions.

For guidelines on amount of macronutrient to eat please see the flex nutrition plan later in part II of this article.

Keep protein intake consistent, but not consistently high

Most athletes don’t eat enough protein regularly enough. Protein will help to preserve your lean mass whilst cutting calories and it keeps you full so you are less likely to over eat. It is also the most thermogenic of all the macronutrients. However many athletes eat too much protein all of the time, which does two things:

1. It can provide additional and unnecessary calories from saturated fat
2. It means you need to keep eating a high amount to sustain muscle mass as the more you eat, the higher the rate of protein breakdown enzymes

Better to eat higher amounts of protein when your muscles need then most and then drip feed the protein through at other times. So on days when you are training at high intensity and involved in breaking down lots of muscle tissue eat more. On days when you train less or do not have the same recovery requirement eat a lower amount. It’s also a good idea to go on a low protein phase from time to time to reset your catabolic enzyme level.

See if you are suffering from syndrome X

Metabolic syndrome or syndrome X is the name given to the collection of symptoms associated with insulin resistance and poor carbohydrate metabolism.

In simple terms, the fatter you are the more insulin resistance your cells will exhibit.

Higher levels of insulin resistance mean more insulin is secreted to get the glucose into your cells, but high insulin levels also pre-dispose our bodies to gain fat. To make matters worse, insulin resistance tends to occur in stages, first the liver becomes resistant, then the muscle cells and finally when you are really, really fat, your fat cells start to become resistant.

If your body fat is higher than 15-16% for men and 25-26% for women you will be at the beginning stages of syndrome X. As such you need to eat carefully to control blood sugar levels.

Symptoms of poor blood sugar regulation can include;

• Fatigue
• Irritable or shaky when hungry
• Rapid mood swings
• Sleeping problems
• Poor concentration
• Forgetfulness
• Excessive sweating
• Stubborn body fat which does not seem to shift no matter how restrictive you are with your diet
• Tiredness after meals containing even small amounts of grains or high GI carbs
• Drowsy, tired or hungry during the day

See if you are deficient or require supplemental support

There are large numbers of people in the western world who are deficient in various vitamin and minerals. Athletes should be less likely to be deficient as they should eat more food because of higher activity levels, and better quality foods due to higher levels of nutritional understanding. In practice this tends not to happen for 2 reasons:

1. Many athletes eat like the general public, they may eat more but the quality of the food is poor
2. Many athletes under eat according to their activity levels, which compounds the problem

For fat loss you need to consider the following areas of deficiency:

An imbalance in omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids will contribute to insulin resistance as well as a host of negative health implications. If you cook with vegetable oil (olive oil is fine) and don’t eat oily fish or pumpkin, linseed, hemp or walnuts – there is a likelihood of deficiency. Blood tests are available for those of you who want to have a more precise look at the levels of essential fats in their cells.

Other important nutrients for blood sugar regulation include chromium, zinc and magnesium to mention a few. Low levels of these minerals will make it more difficult for the body to regulate sugar consumption and all refined foods are low in these minerals.

There have been many studies showing most athletes to be deficient in these minerals. Athletes should actively increase foods linked to these minerals (see sheet) athletes who under eat or who have had a poor eating habit for some time should consider supplementation with a good quality multi vitamin, or mineral complex. Many athletes report beneficial effects from taking a ZMA formula.

More specific formulas aimed at blood sugar regulation are available; ask your nutritionist or sports Doctor for more information.

Matt

In recent years there has been growing interest in identifying natural medicines and plant extracts that can be used to improve athletic performance and/or body composition in humans

Adaptogens are herb products that have been derived from plants.

A recent review of the Effects of Adaptogens on the Central Nervous System found that adaptogens have exhibited neuroprotective, anti-fatigue, antidepressive, anti anxiety, improved memory and CNS stimulating activity.

In addition, a number of clinical trials demonstrated that adaptogens exert an anti-fatigue effect that also increases mental work capacity against a background of stress and fatigue, particularly in tolerance to mental exhaustion and enhanced attention. In particular Rhodiola was shown to help with physical mental and stress induced fatigue and depression.

Matt

1.Liked the dancing one, a good tune always puts you in a good mood.

2.Hanging from a door way chinning bar stretches the spine and helps the body release happy hormones as well as strengthening the grip – start for short bursts of 10 seconds and hang around for longer “once you get the hang of it”.

3.Drink Chinese green tea, its powerful antioxidants help protect the body and it contains natural substances which assist relaxation without making you drowsy

4.An apple a day may actually help keep the doctor away. Apples contain quercetin a powerful protective nutrient also abundant in onions, but don’t peel it, the antioxidants are in the skin – just wash and shine it first.

5.9 a day – is how many pieces of vegetable and fruit the American government want you to eat each day, covering 5 colour groups!  Make this easy by adding berries to your breakfast cereal, have salad with lunch, vegetables for dinner and fruit as snacks.

6.Try to think of other thing to do rather than go to the pub and get merry, good fun activities are 10 pin bowling, paint balling, table top football and playing pool.  Key thing here is to be creative and mix recreations with activity – whatever you do chose things which are fun.

7.Smile more, and look up; laughter supports the immune system – joke books are one way to get started and looking up actually improves the mood, even if it feels like sometimes you are in the gutter remember to look at the stars.

8.Powerful protein, to prevent feeling tired and sluggish; take a look at your diet – if all you see is carbohydrates balance it up with some good quality protein; meat, chicken, fish, eggs or beans and pulses – you’ll feel more alive and active

9.Increase your overall calories spend, walk instead of getting the bus, cycle instead of driving, take the stairs instead of the lift; if that drives you mad start by just walking down the stairs not up.

10.Leave the clean plate club, it’s not the war any more – eat till you are full and leave what’s on the plate.  Eat slowly and savour the taste of each mouthful, try putting your fork down between bites on occasion, make time for conversation whilst eating and make time to have proper meal with your family or loved ones.

Matt

Ok, we know that alcoholism is far from an ideal nutritional strategy… but what exactly is excess booze doing to our body? Apart from the obvious liver damage, and excessive addition of empty-calories, this study found that certain vitamins and minerals are lacking from the diet of heavy drinkers. Comparing 48 men  who included both alcoholics and healthy teetotallers with a good diet, alcoholic subjects were found to have a lower muscle-mass (but well-maintained body fa!), with deficiencies in magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin B12.

Alcoholics also showed increased levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and and markers of inflammation and oxidative stress!

Whether drinking stops people eating appropriately, or whether the booze actively contributes to deficiency, eating to reduce inflammation and to increase micronutrient levels is a MUST if you’ve been hitting the drink excessively.

Obviously the most important thing is to cut down, clean up and improve your diet!

Matt

 Fish oils give building blocks that help make up all of our cells, while these good-fats also helkp improve the way fats are transported around the body. This can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and help some of us lose body-fat.

This double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving was carried out on 229 obese patients who’d had their stomachs stapled. They had very high triglyceride levels (circulating fats in the blood), and supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid EPA at 4 g or or 2g per day, was found to be associated with a significant reduction in triglycerides.

The authors also noted an improvement in “other lipid parameters” (although unspecified!), “without significantly increasing the LDL (bad!) cholesterol levels”.

So eating a little good fat, may help you lose fat! It may smell a little fishy, but it’s true!

Elite level nutrition is aimed at an individuals unique genetic and physical demands and of their position and sport

The goal is to provide optimal nutrient status across all nutrients each day

Diets are designed based on evolutionary perspective of human development

Diet are designed to allow a minimum impact from man made chemicals both your ingestion and then later through minimizing the impact these anti-nutrients have on the system through optimal nutrition

Involved re-writing the food pyramid which is responsible for the majority of obesity and related disease in this country as well as many a fat athlete

Involves education of athletes on carbohydrate consciousness, which main stream sports nutrition and the medical community are only just picking up on

This is not Atkins, but it is certainly not 8g of CHO per kg body weight – this would mean a 100kg rugby player would be eating 53 slices of bread per day!

COMMUNITY LEVEL NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT (and elite level too)

Back to basic approach; follow the 10 principles of sound sports nutrition based diets;

These are recommendations based on an active lifestyle, if you are not active then get active!

BACK TO BASICS

Golden Rules to be Practiced 80-90% of the time and never forgotten;

HYDRATION
1. Drink enough water / green tea / hydration drinks, never get thirsty!

BLOOD SUGAR BALANCE
2. Eat Frequently, eat every 2-3 hours no matter what, unless you are sleeping

RECOVERY AND VITALITY
3. Eat Protein every time you eat

PROTECTION FROM POLLUTION
4. Eat vegetables or fruit every time you eat but eat more veggies than fruit

ENERGY AND DIGESTION
5. Eat starchy carbs every time you eat but eat more around time of the day when you are more active (breakfast and lunch) and less or none when you are less active

RECUPERATION AND REPLENISHMENT
6. Recover aggressively and appropriately after every session

BALANCE BLOOD SUGAR AS NATURE INTENDED
7. Eat whole-foods, low GI all the time except post-training when high GI foods are better for speedy recovery
OPTIMAL CELLUALR FUNCTION AND HEALTH
8. Eat fat, but eat the right kind of fat – from oily fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil and omega eggs

AVOID THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC
9. Avoid ‘empty’ foods which contain calories but no goodness; doughnuts are a good example of these types of food

WE ALL HAVE TO LIVE A LITTLE
10. Remember to enjoy your foods and practice the 80:20 rule or 90:10; this means of 42 weekly meals and snacks, 4 can be whatever you want if you are being strict 90% of the time and 8 can be naughty if you are being strict 80% of the time

Matt

 Proven strategies for effective and long term body fat reduction

General Tips for fat loss for athletes;

In an earlier article on carbohydrates and diet we looked at keeping a diary as a base line measurement.

Adjustments are better made from a point of knowledge or awareness; examples of a diet diary are included later in this article.

Nip and tuck;

Once you have quantified your daily intake, simply ‘nip and tuck’

This is a basic approach which always works, it requires little skill just a small amount of will power.

• It goes like this, if you are eating 4 slices of toast at breakfast – eat 3.
• 1 baked potato at lunch eat a ½ instead.
• Sugar in your tea, switch to no sugar or use a low calories sweetener.
• Tuck the fat;
• Look through your diet and cut down or reduce all sources of saturated fat;
• Use less butter or a benecol reduced fat spread.
• Use less cheese, trim the rind on animal fat, eat less red meat, & more fish.

Beware though low fat products as these tend always to be higher in sugar; 99% fat free = 99% sugar.

When nipping and tucking do not let your daily protein intake drop and in meals where there is no protein, add some.

Train Hard – Train Smart;

Timing your training to maximise fat burning is easy, simply train when your blood sugar and insulin levels are low. These are lowest generally when you first wake up as this is the longest period the body goes without food during the 24 hour feeding cycle. This will encourage more calories to be burnt from fat, and also promote favourable hormonal release if you train at the right intensity (above LT threshold for more than 10 minutes).

Use sports drinks instinctively;

Routine and unmeasured intake of sports drinks can add a significant amount of high GI carbs to the diet. If you want to stay lean and improve your body composition you should look at the amount of these drinks that you are consuming. For training that is aimed at fat burning don’t consume these until after the session, stick to an electrolyte drink instead.

When training for maximum performance – you need these drinks, without them performance will suffer. Generally I suggest using the sugary drinks after 45 minutes into a session to sustain effort and performance.

If absolute performance is not an issue and maximising the growth hormone and fat-burning effects of the session is, then leave these drinks until afterwards.

Fruit Intake;

Fruits and vegetables are good for you; but fruits contain lots of sugar and many people take the 5 servings of fruit and vegetable a day to mean 5 pieces of fruit. It’s portable and sweet tasting and convenient, but it may be hampering your ability to lose body fat if you are over doing it.

To maximise health benefits and enjoy fruits aim for 9 servings of fruit and vegetable each day, but try to keep to 3 fruits and 6 vegetables. As far as I’m concerned fruit is an important part of a healthy diet, but perhaps not as important as vegetables, hence I always recommend vegetables and fruit as opposed to the other way around.

The Government recommendations of 5 pieces a day should be 6 veggies and 1-3 fruits depending on activity levels and the time of year – it’s more common to eat more fruit in the summer and autumn for instance.

Remember that these recommendations are based on body composition management, so those without body fat problems can usually bend the rule a little but the underlying philosophies stay the same.

Fruit as it was traditionally eaten (autumn in this country) would have been gorged upon throughout the harvest supplying useful energy to work the fields but also building up body fat reserves for the difficult winters – it really was a feast-famine cycle for most people.

Fructose, the most commonly occurring sugar in fruit, is preferentially turned to body fat in the presence of normal carbohydrate metabolism – in English this means if blood sugar levels are normal i.e. you’ve just eaten, then much of that glucose and fructose will turn to body fat.

Bad idea then to eat fruit salad following spaghetti bolognaise! Much better is to eat fruit on it’s own or better still with protein containing foods nuts, seeds, yoghurt or cottage cheese, or eat it earlier in the day or following exercise.

Fructose will replenish liver glycogen quickly so it’s very, very good for athlete or those doing multiple exercise sessions or any type of manual job.

Matt Lovell

Maintaining background detoxification is essential to health and performance. The liver has a number of functions critical to recovery. Using Green Teas and Detox teas with other added ingredients can help support these systems and aid performance.

Liver function can be impaired through inadequate diet, alcohol and caffeine consumption, routine use of anti-inflammatory drugs, pollution,  physical stress and processed or junk foods.

Key liver functions include;

1. Conversion of thyroid hormones which help regulate metabolism;
2. You guessed it; sluggish liver = sluggish metabolism
3. Liver creates glucose tolerance factor (GTF) this helps insulin properly regulate blood sugar levels
4. Manufacture of bile salts which help absorption of fat soluble vitamins
5. Activation of nutrients into active forms, all of the nutrients you consume are made available to the body through the liver
6. Conversion of lactate acid, to glycogen – less lactate more potential for performance
7. Regulation of protein metabolism
8. Regulation of essential fatty acids
9. Main poison detoxifying organ in the body

So a properly functioning liver means easier to stay lean, better nutrient availability and enhanced physical performance; plus it’s the corner stone to good health!

TOP LIVER PROTECTING HABITS

1. Avoid over processed foods; instead eat plenty of fresh ‘live’ foods (raw veggies and sprouted beans are excellent) use ORGANIC whenever possible
2. Avoid excessive caffeine – more than 2 cups each day will put additional strain on the liver – have days off caffeine, beware of hidden caffeine
3. Avoid excessive alcohol – don’t drink alcohol everyday and have periods of abstinence
4. Keep artificial sweeteners, preserved foods, smoked foods and processed four products (cakes biscuits pastries) to a minimum
5. Eat raw seeds and nuts, plenty of soups, apples, omega 3 fats and fish every day
6. Useful culinary herbs and foods include parsley, garlic, black pepper, citrus rind, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, radish, kale and alfalfa sprouts
7. Use milk thistle periodically to keep the liver healthy
8. Consider a modified detox once each year, this can be from 2-3 days to 2 weeks
9. Whey protein assists liver function and glutathione production, glutathione is produced in the liver and helps with fat loss and cell protection

REMEMBER THESE POINTS; 

• Avoid excess caffeine, and alcohol
• Eat less or no processed or refined foods
• Eat plenty of raw fresh foods, including nuts, veggies and fruit
• Use herbs and spices regularly in your cooking
• Use herbs like milk thistle and detox teas to give your liver additional support 
• Consider a yearly or twice yearly mini detox

Matt

Below are some example meals for aspiring rugby players who are looking at muscle building, amounts and recipes are not included, for a full list of recipes please email matt@performandfunction.co.uk.

You’ll have to use your own preferences and cooking skills to find your way around these suggestions but it give you a picture of the type of things to choose at various times of the day.

*You may wish to choose non bovine sources of milk; oat milk, rice milk or goats milk are all good

**There are many recovery drinks on the market – choose one which you enjoy the taste of and swap varieties from time to time.

This is the first part of a series of articles designed to help you with some nutrition concepts and keep your performance and health on track!

Feeding Opportunities;

It’s easy to eat without thinking and we often do so. However each time you eat you should view this as a feeding opportunity. The meal you choose to have and the food you add to your plate will directly affect your cells and the rate they recover and express themselves. In plain English this means a meal will either;

• Make you fatter than you already are and lower you energy
• Keep you about the same as you are and possibly still lower your energy
• Recover your muscles and keep the fat burning environment ticking over and increase your energy

 Sometimes you can eat a meal which will be spot on but if you top it off with a pudding – the resulting insulin release will ruin the desired effect.

The point is a meal is an opportunity to improve yourself and your performance – take it!

Suggested ratios of food are included on sheets at the end of this document.

Remember that getting it right 90% of the time is about right which leaves 4 ‘off’ meals each week.

EAT THE CORRECT RATIOS TO KEEP YOUR ENERGY HIGH AND KEEP YOUR BODY FATS LOW

Enzymes;

“Enzyme preservation is the secret to health.” Enzymes are the spark plugs that make biochemical engines in every one of our cells fire properly. They spark every significant process that goes on in our bodies: digestion, nerve impulses, detoxification, the workings of DNA and RNA, repairing and healing, thinking and remembering, and, among others, the making of all hormones.

Enzyme storage is exhaustible

One troubling fact about enzymes is that they are exhaustible. Eating “dead,” rather than “live” foods contributes most to enzyme bankruptcy. Exposed to light, air and extreme heat, highly-processed foods, for example, lose most of their enzymes. This forces the body to compensate for this shortage by making enzymes. However, without sufficient, high-quality raw materials, it can’t make enough enzymes, and we go nutritionally bankrupt. Therefore, it is important for us to eat live, fresh, nutrient-dense, enzyme-rich foods daily.

EAT FRESH FOODS WHEN EVER THEY ARE AVAILABLE; ALL THESE HELP WITH ENZYME MAINTENANCE!

• SALADS
• FRUITS
• BERRIES
• GREEN EDGE II and
• FRESH JUICES USING THE JUICER

Matt