Most athletes see the benefits of eating frequently and consistently through the day. Eating a balanced diet in small portions 5-6 times a day helps to avoid the “peaks and valleys” of energy brought on by the insulin-glucagon response. If you eat 3 large meals, you will go through energy highs and energy lows during the course of the day. This has many detrimental side-effects ranging from concentration, athletic ability and even your ability to stave off disease.
Eating a balanced diet requires some planning and also having plenty of nutritionally dense food readily available for snacks. Follow the 1-2-3 principle for snacking
Every snack that we ingest should have 3 components to make sure that we are getting a properly balanced nutritionally sound caloric intake.
1. Fruit
2. Carbohydrate
3. Protein
Some examples of very simple snacks that you can take with you:
- Apple, granola bar, yogurt
- Peanut butter and banana sandwich
- Orange and chocolate milk (more on chocolate milk later…)
- Trail mix with dried fruit
- Grapes and a bagel with cream cheese
Pack snacks for throughout the day which follow the 1-2-3 pinciple and you will have more consistent energy and see better results.
