How Important is Eating Properly?
The main rule is very simple: there are no foods that can make you win a race, but there are many foods that can make you lose it.
Starting from this assumption it is necessary to create a food awareness, and to become familiar with a few general concepts that it is useful to know to set up a correct diet, in relation to the physical efforts to be sustained.
We must first of all remember that everything we introduce into our body must serve at the same time:
- Like gasoline (calories),
- As protection (vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants),
- For thermal regulation (the water in drinks and that contained in food),
- For the continuous maintenance of worn parts (proteins with their essential amino acids that allow the continuous renewal of tissues).
What Macronutrients Does the Human Being Need?
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Newspapers and television often talk about diets and nutrition; there is a lot of talk about it even in a sports environment. However, for one reason or another, not everyone has clear ideas and often old popular notions not shared by modern science are handed down.
The human engine needs a mixture of macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats) with preferential percentage ratios to function at their best.
So, let's immediately specify which should be the most appropriate blend for any human being (sedentary or sportsman does not make much difference, if not for the smaller or larger quantity of mixture, while its percentage composition is similar).
At least 50-60% of the calories that each of us need must come from the carbohydrate group, no more than 30% from the fat group and the remaining 10-20% from the protein group.
Since the human engine is very complex, it also needs "protective" elements (vitamins, minerals, etc.).
One of the effects of training is the increase in muscle tissue; but as the amount of muscle tissue increases, metabolism increases.
The muscles of the athletes consume a mixture of carbohydrates and lipids that varies in percentage according to the workouts performed and the intensity of the physical exercise: at the beginning of the exercise carbohydrates are consumed, in the purely aerobic exercise the muscles mainly use fats , while as the intensity of work increases, an increasingly rich mixture of carbohydrates is consumed.
(the simplest form of carbohydrates that after digestion will pass into the blood) produces, in the cells of the human body, energy (4 calories per gram of sugar) and, as an easily eliminated waste, water and carbon dioxide.
Carbohydrates are the foods that all over the world provide man with the basis of nutrition, or at least half of the calories that are needed, every day, to pay for the expense of being alive and the much more expensive one to move and run.
Where are carbohydrates found?
Carbohydrates are found mainly in plant foods: in cereals (bread, pasta, rice, corn, etc.), in legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils), in tubers (potatoes), in fruit and vegetables (sugar for example comes from the processing of cane or beets).
However, carbohydrates are also present among foods of animal origin, in milk (lactose 5 g per 100 g of milk) and, logically, in honey. In soft drinks (juices, coca-cola, chinotti, etc.) and even more in sweets!
Simple and complex sugars
The distinction of carbohydrates into "simple" and "complex" concerns the speed of assimilation, that is the time it will take to be digested, then "disassembled" and reduced to elementary molecules (glucose, fructose and galactose) capable of passing through the intestinal wall and to enter the blood.
The carbohydrates of legumes, pasta, bread or rice are complex, and therefore slower in digestion (all rich in starch, a very long and complex molecule that our enzymes must shorten in digestion).
Instead, simple and rapidly absorbed carbohydrates are those of honey or sugar (sucrose) with which we sweeten coffee, those of fruit or juices.
Glycemic Index: What is it?
The glycemic index indicates how quickly the body metabolizes a food, based on a scale in which pure glucose has a value of 100.
Foods with a high glycemic index (such as bread and cereals that are eaten for breakfast) are digested more quickly and make you feel hungry first; those with a lower glycemic index, on the other hand, burn slowly and cause a longer lasting sense of satiety.
Furthermore, adding fiber to each meal (vegetables) will slow down the body's glycemic response.
Foods with a high glycemic index in practice make the body produce more insulin; this hormone takes away the sugars from the blood by making them enter the cells and reduces lipolysis, causing a lower availability of free fatty acids: the lowering of blood sugar creates the feeling of hunger.
Therefore, the ideal thing would be to eat complex carbohydrates, which are often the ones with the lowest glycemic index, in order not to risk an early onset of hunger.
The fructose contained in fruit causes a very low insulin response; moreover, not only does it not reduce the level of circulating fatty acids, but rather favors their use, thus saving a part of the muscle sugar stocks, represented by glycogen.
In the past, many athletes used a dissociated diet to increase muscle glycogen stores on race day: after a maximum workout, capable of eliminating muscle glycogen stores, they followed three days of diet only fat and protein, and another three days of intake of carbohydrates only.
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