UKHealthy.co.uk

When and What to Eat to Aid Exercise

Webmaster - UKHealthy.co.uk

Advertisements

Most people exercise simply to keep fit, yet there are also people who do it to tone up and tighten loose skin, to ease the symptoms of an underlying health problem, to build muscle and become stronger or simply to keep fit. Much like everything in our lives, however, our success with exercise is subject to what we eat. Live on a diet of cheeseburgers and chocolate and a week's worth of constant exercise won't do you much good. Thankfully there are so really healthy and even tastier ways to optimize your exercise routine so that your body looks, feels and performs at its best.

Firstly, you need a decent balance of foods. All food will provide energy, but we also need plenty of vitamins, protein, and carbohydrate too. There's a reason why the term 'meat and two veg' is used to describe a 'standard' meal and that's because it provides almost all of what you need. Usually, two types of vegetables (E.G. minted peas and runner beans or yam and carrot mash), a small portion of carbohydrate (a piece of bread, side serving of rice, pasta, cous cous or potatoes for example) and some protein-packed meat (perhaps grilled chicken, steak or baked fish fillet) is perfect. Meat can be substituted with egg in some meals and if you're a vegan then nuts such as cashews should be a regular snack.

If you're trying to lose weight through exercise then snacking may be an issue for you. Celery sticks and hummus isn't always appealing when really you want a huge hunk of chocolate cake. To satisfy the sweet craving try yogurt coated fruit and nuts. Okay so this is still mildly fattening but yogurt coated and chocolate coated things don't taste that dissimilar, yet the calorific difference is great. You can do this with ice cream too; frozen yogurt is much less fattening than its creamy counterpart. If you've got a real milk chocolate craving then try something made from carob. It doesn't taste exactly the same but if you chop up 3 squares of carob and 3 squares of milk, mix it together with raisins, nuts and seeds then you've got a tasty snack that's half the calories.

Speaking of nuts and seeds, some have incredible implications for exercise and energy levels. Sunflower seeds in particular, help your body to release energy very slowly throughout the day which will stabilize your blood sugar levels and could even eradicate mid-morning cravings. Another slow-energy releaser is porridge oats, which is why you see so many breakfast snack bars that are flapjack. Why not make your own, with low fat butter, half the sugar, apricots and a melted carob topping?