Exercising helps you take care of your health, keep your muscles in good shape and look great. But maximum success is only possible if your workouts are accompanied by proper nutrition. In this case, you can lose weight or gain muscle mass faster, depending on your goals.
For professional athletes, proper nutrition is as important as choosing clothes for running or other sports. The type of food consumed and the amount consumed determines endurance and recovery after intense exercise, especially after competitions.
Proper nutrition for athletes performs the following important tasks:
- Activates and normalizes metabolic processes in the body, which are necessary for muscle growth and recovery;
- Saturates with vitamins and minerals needed for strength and energy, and also provides the necessary caloric value;
- Helps regulate weight when losing weight or maintaining muscle mass.
That’s why beginner athletes should spend even more time on this issue than on finding a fashionable sportswear store.
Diet
In order for the training process to be as simple as possible and lead to the desired result faster, you need to follow a diet. For many girls, additional motivation to watch what to eat can be women’s fitness clothing that will sit perfectly on a slim figure, which is what they strive for in classes.
For many, the concept of healthy eating is associated with a large number of restrictions, daily consumption of the same products that can hardly be called tasty. In fact, the principles of healthy eating are much simpler, they allow you to eat tasty, varied and, most importantly, healthy food that not only helps you lose weight, but also has a beneficial effect on the body in general.
One of the mistakes that beginners make in the pursuit of slimness is to sharply limit the daily calorie intake in the hope of a quick effect. However, this decision provokes a decline in strength and can lead to a stop in training due to loss of energy, constant melancholy and bad mood. In fact, sports activities require a lot of physical strength, both for the training process and for recovery, so you should not reduce the number of calories, it is important to properly maintain the protein-fat and carbohydrate balance.
Professionals know a lot about proteins and carbohydrates consumed daily in food. And those who are just starting their sports path are recommended not only to buy sportswear for women or men, but also to study the issues of organizing a diet with the necessary balance of useful and necessary substances for the body.
Proteins, fats and carbohydrates are essential elements in the daily menu. Protein serves as a building material for muscles and also contains amino acids that help to recover. It is not always possible to get enough protein from food. In this case, you can take protein shakes in order to maintain the necessary level. Choosing the right nutrition for training is also important. The success of losing weight or gaining weight depends 30% on sports and 70% on what you eat.
In order to have enough strength and endurance, you need energy, which can be obtained from food. The source of energy is carbohydrates, which are necessary for the body to function properly. It is worth considering that there are 2 types of carbohydrates :
- Fast (simple);
- Slow (difficult).
Simple carbohydrates are sugar and products containing it in large quantities. This includes confectionery and flour products, the consumption of which should be kept to a minimum, as they are not beneficial.
Slow carbohydrates are essential in an athlete’s diet. They take a long time to break down, saturating the body with energy and creating a feeling of satiety for a long time. Products rich in complex carbohydrates are porridges.
Also, the diet must necessarily contain fats that belong to the unsaturated category. They are useful both for weight loss and for gaining and maintaining muscle mass.
The menu is compiled taking into account the set goals. The diet for weight loss or weight gain implies different percentages of proteins, fats and carbohydrates:
- To lose weight, the majority should be proteins, approximately 40-50%, fats and carbohydrates – 30% and 10%
- To maintain the current shape, the ratio looks something like this: 25/25/50, with slight deviations possible;
- If the goal of training is to gain muscle mass , the main part of the diet should be carbohydrates – 40-60%, proteins 25-35, and very little fat – 15-25%.
The principles of proper nutrition include at least 5 meals, every 3-4 hours in small portions. It is essential to have breakfast with such a schedule, since breakfast is the meal that starts the metabolism. If there is no time at all for food in the morning, it is better to take a healthy breakfast with you than to buy something unhealthy on the way to school or work.
It is also necessary to eat before training so that the body has the strength for physical activity. But this does not mean that you need to put on a set of clothes for running and have a snack on the way to the stadium or to the gym. Nutrition should be carried out no later than 1-2 hours before the start of training.
A popular question that worries beginner athletes along with where to order a women’s or men’s tracksuit is whether it is possible to eat immediately after training? During exercise, the body spends a large amount of nutrients that need to be restored after exercise. Therefore, after training, you need to eat a small portion of food or drink a drink that will help in recovery. This can be a protein product – cottage cheese, kefir or a protein shake, both in pure form and with the addition of a small amount of carbohydrates, if there were high loads.
Drinking regime
No less important in the athlete’s diet is the drinking regime. With high physical activity, a person inevitably sweats, and moisture comes out with sweat. If you do not drink water, you can allow dehydration, which has a very negative effect on the body.
It is advisable to drink water at least once every 3-4 hours, and if thirst arises during training, it also needs to be quenched. In this case, we are talking specifically about clean drinking water. Tea, coffee, juices and especially carbonated drinks do not count.
Water is useful for any person, and is simply necessary for an athlete. In addition to quenching thirst, it performs many other important functions:
- Prevents dehydration;
- Replenishes energy resources;
- Protects blood vessels and heart;
- Has a positive effect on digestion;
- Cleanses the body;
- Rejuvenates the skin.
For those who are not used to following a drinking regime, it is quite difficult to control yourself and drink a lot of water at first. You can buy a special bottle and always carry it with you to form the right habit. Our Nordski sportswear website has a large selection of accessories, including water bottles for the warm season, as well as a thermal tank for cold and hot drinks made of high-tech food-grade plastic, which eliminates the ingress of harmful substances and foreign odors inside.
The thermal tank is convenient to carry with you thanks to the waist belt during any training, including winter outdoor activities, while maintaining the drinking regime necessary for the body to function properly and recover.
The diet of professional athletes is developed individually. A personal menu is created for them based on weight, age, gender, training time and intensity of loads. General recommendations are suitable for everyone who starts doing sports and plans to review their diet in order to achieve their goals.
In addition to knowledge of the basics of proper nutrition, beginner athletes need to decide on the direction of training and it is better to find a personal trainer who will help you master the correct technique for performing exercises, will monitor the process and control the indicators. Also, high-quality sportswear is needed, the Nordski online store will help in solving this problem. Clothing plays an important role in the training process, allowing you to exercise comfortably without harm to your health. From the assortment presented on the site, you can easily assemble a Nordski suit, which is suitable for training at different times of the year.