Mark Verstegen is a world renowned performance coach and has worked with many elite athletes in his career. In his book Core Performance Essentials he goes through some very important rules around eating as an athlete. It is no secret idea that athletes need to fuel differently than people who don’t use their bodies for high level performance. Just like using diesel fuel in a sports car would ruin the engine in a similar way eating poorly puts the athlete at a disadvantage. Lack of nutritional content and the wrong type of fuel can cause damage. Athletes can optimize performance by learning to fuel themselves in a more effective way.
If an athlete eats poorly their engine won’t necessarily seize and be destroyed so many athletes use the idea of just powering through their poor food choices by thinking they can conquer it mentaly. Yes that can be done however, consider energy is being utilized for that as well so it seems a bit of a waste. I also think people believe they are much more proficient at powering through than they actually are. If all of your energy is put into alignment that focus can be put on greatness. Fuel is a huge part of being an athlete and by managing these types of things you can really help to optimize your level of greatness. Treating food as fuel instead of a friend is a way to separate hunger from loneliness or eating something just because it tastes good. Unleashing the power of food can really be a huge difference maker when it comes to performance.
More important than fuelling properly is fuelling properly for you! What this mean is paying attention to what works best for your system. Things to consider are meal times, processing time of the meal after consumption and then also figuring out foods to avoid that don’t feel right. Doing this can really help to put you in the optimal state of performance. For example years ago I gave up milk because I was noticing it was having a negative impact on my skin but also I noticed that when I drank it my stomach didn’t feel good. I started to use unsweetened almond milk instead and my body processed it much better. No one would know that except me. Also, when I work out too hard I have to wait about 20 minutes in order to be able to eat otherwise I feel nauseous.
Here are some strategies as recommended by Mark Verstegen
Strategy #1 - Eat Often
Socially we are taught to eat three square meals a day. We are to avoid between-meal snacks as well not eating after dinner. The problem with that is that we eat larger amounts and can sometimes feel bloated from that level of consumption all at once. A way to look at eating frequently is like constantly throwing wood on the fire to keep the flame consistent over a period of time. Each time you eat your digestion is cranked up and metabolism burns the calories. Big meals means the flame is smouldering and dying whereas a hot fire is keeps burning consistently.
If you don’t eat consistently then the most readily available thing for the body to burn is muscle which is obviously counter productive. Most people might think it would be their fat that would be burned but the human body is very resistant to burning fat for self preservation purposes. Eating the right food in the proper portions at the correct times more frequently helps to encourage the fat reserves to be tapped into. This is why eating pre-workout and post-workout is incredibly important to ensure your body is ready to go and then recovering well after exercising.
Strategy #2 - Eating Schedules
People have different schedules and times they chose to workout. Spreading out 5 to 7 meals a day can be challenging and certainly doesn’t happen by accident. Especially because you want to ensure that you are right sizing your meals and not “supersizing” in terms of just eating large amounts many times a day. This means that proper planning is critical to being able to execute this strategy and have the food ready for consumption.
Here are some scheduling options for eating throughout the day
Sample Schedule #1 Morning Work-Out
6:15am - Pre-workout Snack
Work-Out (6:30am to 7:30am)
7:30am - Meal #1 Breakfast
10:30am - Meal #2 Snack
1:30pm - Meal #3 Lunch
4:00pm to 4:30pm - Meal #4 Snack
7:00pm to 7:30pm - Meal #5 Dinner
10:00pm to 10:30pm - Meal #6 Snack
Sample Scheduler #2 Lunch Work-Out
7:00am - Meal #1 Breakfast
10:00am - Meal #2 Snack
11:30am - Pre-workout Snack
Work-Out (12:00pm to 1:00pm)
1:00pm - Meal #3 Lunch
4:00pm - Meal #4 Snack
7:00pm - Meal #5 Dinner
10:00pm - Meal #6 Snack
Sample Schedule #3 - Early Evening Work-out
7:00am - Meal #1 Breakfast
10:00am - Meal #2 Snack
1:00pm - Meal #3 Lunch
4:00pm - Meal #4 Snack
6:00pm - Meal #5 Light Dinner
Workout (7:00pm - 8:30pm)
9:00pm to 9:30pm - Meal #6 Snack
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