|
Article Date: December 1, 2008
By: Ryan O'Brien
Whether you are trying to loose weight, an active person trying to maintain weight, or active person trying to reign in one more aspect of your training this article is for you. What we eat, when we eat it, and how much we consume all play a big role in our lives. The USDA recommends many stats and eating habits for the average adult like 45-65% of your diet should be from carbohydrates, 10-35% from protein sources, and 20-35% from fat with a maximum of 10% from Saturated fat and cholesterol. This is all great stuff if you happen to fall into one of the narrowly predefined categories of average. If you are like me and you find yourself quickly asking the question, "so what does this all mean for me?", I have written this article for you.
Having combed the internet looking for the solution to this dilemma, I offer with the following: for the average person with average activity levels (whatever that means), sticking with the USDA Daily Recommended Allowances works, but if you are a very active endurance athlete like myself your dietary needs are probably better more narrowly defined as containing 60-70% carbohydrates, 15-20% protein, and 20-25% fat. Everyone is defferent so you will have to custmize this to yourself but this is a good place to start. I refer you to the abundance of information out there for a more indepth look, but offer the following generic guidelines:
Generic Endurance Athlete Dietary Guidelines
- Carbohydrates 60-70% of diet comprising of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables
- Proteins 15-20% of diet comprising of nuts, seeds, legumes, soy, dairy, meat, fish, eggs
- Limit Animal sources of protein to less than 10% as it contains higher saturated fat and takes more energy to diggest
- Fats 20-25% of diet, a lot of things contain fat, limit consumption of saturated fats to less then 10%
- Sweets & Treats - limit this to less than 5% of your diet, less is better, but if you really like sweets do not eliminate them altogether as this will lead to binging
- Eating frequency - You should eat regular and often, at least 3 meals a day to keep your metabolism up
- 4 meals with a snack in between works best for me, or eating roughly every 2 hours
- Eating often helps avoid binge eating
- Eating a balance of protein & carbs shortly after you wake, within 30 minutes of exercise, and just before you go to bed at night helps aid recovery and an even energy level.
Ok, I have covered the basics of a good diet, now to simplify the process of determining your caloric needs, below I have included a calorie calculator. There are many different methods for calculating your needs, I have gone with a middle of the road method called the Harris-Benedict formula. This formula uses, age, gender, height, weight, and activity level to get a fairly accurate number.
|
