September is a fantastic month for British Military Fitness. It offers a brilliant combination of cooler weather to train in, even more beautiful parks as the leaves change colour, and softer, forgiving ground to train on.
Each week in September we're offering 5 new fitness and nutrition tips - so why not combine these tips with the great outdoors and see how many classes you can fit in before the end of September. This combined approach is the best way to start seeing changes. To help you get the most out of your increased BMF attendance, this week's nutrition tips focus on what you should eat for energy.
There are a few baseline nutritional habits that we need to observe. Get these right and you can then build you own personal approach in order to create a sustainable nutrition change that works for you.
1. Eat 7-11 portions of vegetables or fruit every day. These will provide you with all of the micronutrients needed to perform the metabolic actions required to get energy from food. Eating a good amount of various plants allows you to digest food much more efficiently and allows you to break down and use the energy therein to your full potential.
2. Eat protein with every sitting. Aim for around 2 grams per kilogram of lean body mass. Protein is necessary for muscle growth and repair as a result of the hard training that you do, and it is best to split your protein feedings out over 4-5 meals/snacks rather than eat it all at once.
3. Drink water regularly. Water is needed for digestion and absorption of nutrients, as well as cell function and a TON of other things. Fill a bottle and keep drinking it.
4. Eat to a rough schedule. Not only does this reduce snacking and make it far easier to keep calories in check, not leaving too long between meals is a great way to prevent your blood sugar getting too low. After a meal, your blood sugar is raised a certain amount which provides your brain and other organs a ready stream of usable glucose. If blood sugar drops because you are waiting too long in between meals, you will feel tired and sluggish, but also incredibly hungry. Low blood sugar makes you crave food, which is a bad idea for those looking to keep their intake under control.
5. Roughly count calories. Calories are energy units and we need to be sure we get enough, but not too much. The simplest way is to quantify it by putting a number on it. Follow this link to find out how to find YOUR number.
Once you follow these rules and have been doing so consistently for a few weeks - long enough to make it second nature - you need to then figure out your individual variances. The simplest way to do this is on a meal-by-meal basis starting from a baseline. BMF nutritionist, Ben Coomber, talks us through this in more depth here.
Good luck BMFers!
