Carbohydrates and fat for training and recovery

Abstract

An important goal of the athlete's everyday diet is to provide the muscle with substrates to fuel the training programme that will achieve optimal adaptation for performance enhancements. In reviewing the scientific literature on post-exercise glycogen storage since 1991, the following guidelines for the training diet are proposed. Athletes should aim to achieve carbohydrate intakes to meet the fuel requirements of their training programme and to optimize restoration of muscle glycogen stores between workouts. General recommendations can be provided, preferably in terms of grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of the athlete's body mass, but should be fine-tuned with individual consideration of total energy needs, specific training needs and feedback from training performance. It is valuable to choose nutrient-rich carbohydrate foods and to add other foods to recovery meals and snacks to provide a good source of protein and other nutrients. These nutrients may assist in other recovery processes and, in the case of protein, may promote additional glycogen recovery when carbohydrate intake is suboptimal or when frequent snacking is not possible. When the period between exercise sessions is 58 h, the athlete should begin carbohydrate intake as soon as practical after the first workout to maximize the effective recovery time between sessions. There may be some advantages in meeting carbohydrate intake targets as a series of snacks during the early recovery phase, but during longer recovery periods (24 h) the athlete should organize the pattern and timing of carbohydrate-rich meals and snacks according to what is practical and comfortable for their individual situation. Carbohydrate-rich foods with a moderate to high glycaemic index provide a readily available source of carbohydrate for muscle glycogen synthesis, and should be the major carbohydrate choices in recovery meals. Although there is new interest in the recovery of intramuscular triglyceride stores between training sessions, there is no evidence that diets which are high in fat and restricted in carbohydrate enhance training.

Efficacy and consequences of very-high-protein diets for athletes and exercisers

“…In studies with overweight populations, protein intake often is increased at the expense of carbohydrate intake (51,53,75,76) . This switch would be untenable to an athlete desiring to maintain training quality and quantity (10,80) . Therefore, in our study, protein intake was increased at the expense of fat intake (74) .…”

“…Given high energy intakes, carbohydrate intake may still be sufficient even with elevated protein intakes (10) . However, unless energy intake is very high, then carbohydrate intake will necessarily be lower than that sufficient to support moderate to intense training (80) , even with protein intake that many would consider moderate (10) .…”

Dietary intake of energy and selected nutrients and plasma lipid profile in young women and men with different levels of physical activity

“…In the present study, dietary intake of carbohydrates, per kilogram of body mass per day, was similar in all the groups and met the recommendations for different physical activity levels. Only in the group of women with high physical activity was the intake of this nutrient slightly lower than the reference values [4]. According to the guidelines of the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel [39] regarding the dietary intake of fat, the percentage of energy derived from this nutrient was only lower than the reference values in the diets of training women.…”

“…Daily food intake was assessed using the Photo Album of Products and Dishes, which presented the types and sizes of foods in grams [38], and then was analyzed by Dieta 4.0, a computer software developed by the National Food and Nutrition Institute in Warsaw. Dietary analysis, including the dietary intake of the aforementioned components, was performed according to guidelines provided by the Department of Sports Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport and by Lemon [4,22]. The lipid profile was performed according to guidelines provided by the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel (United States) [39].…”

Fluid and fuel intake during exercise

“…For example, as discussed by Burke et al (2004) and Ivy and colleagues (Zawadzki et al, 1992;Ivy, 2001;Ivy et al, 2002), the addition of small amounts of protein to carbohydrate ingested after exercise augments the plasma insulin response, which has the potential to alter metabolism. However, at present there is insufficient theoretical rationale or data to recommend inclusion of protein in solutions ingested during exercise.…”