FITNESS Food and exercise – what to eat, when

REPLENISH Eating within an hour of exercise will help your body recover faster.

Fuelling your engine


Personal Trainer
Paul O'Brien

Fuelling your body for exercise and training is a key factor in achieving optimal performance and recovery. An engine that is filled with inadequate or poor quality fuel will clearly not perform to its capability. It’s also more likely to break down somewhere along the line.
Your body is much the same. The mechanics of exercising are performed by your musculo-skeletal system, with your bones and muscles working in unison to help you move. The fuel for this movement comes from the energy converted from the food you eat, ably aided by oxygen delivered to working muscles by your cardio-respiratory and cardio-vascular systems. It’s a complex but brilliantly functioning network of these systems and more. From the moment food passes into your mouth, all these systems rev up to produce energy for your working muscles.
Providing your body with the correct fuel is vital, not just for performance and recovery, but for your overall health also. Thankfully, the same fuel will generally provide adequately for the needs of most recreational exercisers.
The basic tenets of healthy eating are well known – plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, varying the types of each you consume over the course of your week. As well as being a source of carbohydrates, eating a good variety of fruit and vegetables will ensure your body is receiving adequate vitamins and minerals for things such as bone development, body repair and immune-system function.
Carbohydrates are also important in your diet. Consuming slow-release carbs (like oats and whole grains) help top up your body’s store of glycogen, the major fuel source for your training. These foods are especially helpful in the 90-120 minutes before a long training session.
Protein consumption is the least understood facet of fuel for training. The role of protein is to help rebuild the damage to muscle and bone tissue that occurs as a consequence of impact or weight training (such as running).
Aim to eat a moderate amount of protein at each meal. A mix of protein and carbohydrate should definitely be consumed in the post-training window. Try to eat within the first 30 minutes of finishing your training, and certainly don’t leave it any longer than an hour. During this window, your body’s building blocks for repair are depleted, and your system does its best work if fuelled during this time. You will also experience less post-exercise muscle soreness and recover more quickly if you always eat during this window.
Lastly, consuming healthy fats is also an important part of your diet. Fats play a major role in protecting the organs of the body and also help in the transmission of nerve signals, among lots of other key roles.
Following a healthy diet will help fuel your exercise needs. As your exercise volume increases, meeting your nutritional needs becomes more important. Remember though, everyone has different nutritional needs based on many factors, and expert advice from a qualified nutritionist should be sought when tailoring to individual requirements.

Paul O’Brien is a personal trainer and life coach based in Westport.