nutrition

Hydrate.  About 60-70% of your body is water.  Your blood is mostly water and your organs contain water.  Water is essential for your body to function.  Not drinking enough water puts a tremendous strain on your body as it tries to compensate to the lake of water.  As an athlete, it becomes more important since you loose much more water than a sedentary person.  Water regulates your body temperature, provides a means to transport nutrients to all of your organs, transports oxygen to your bodies' cells and removes waste.  If you take your body weight and half that number, that is the absolute minimum amount of water, in ounces, you should be drinking every day.

Breakfast is your most important meal of the day because it determines your metabolism for the rest of the day.  If you don't eat breakfast or have a small unhealthy snack your metabolism goes into defense mode and slows down.  By the time lunch comes around you are staving so you eat a huge meal but your metabolism is still very slow, most of the food is not metabolized correctly.  You will ultimately see the end result as unwanted fat around your mid-section.

Eating often during the day will help keep your metabolism stable.  You also won't feel as hungry and will be less inclined to over eat.

Eating dinner early will give your body adequate time to process your food before you go to sleep and your metabolism slows down.  Since processing food requires energy, the less food you have in your stomach at bedtime, the better you will sleep.

Eat the good fats.  Unsaturated fats which include polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are an essential nutrients for good health.  They help lower LDL cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease.  They are found in foods like Olive oil, avocadoes, fish, almonds and flaxseed to name a few.  Saturated and trans fats should be avoided. They will raise your LDL cholesterol levels and can cause many health problems, heart disease being the most common. Saturated fats are found in foods like meat, cheese, butter, milk and in most processed foods. Trans fats are created when unsaturated fat is made into a solid, like margarine. Remember- fatty blood is also slow blood.
        
Avoid Sugars.  This would also include products made with high fructose corn syrup and simple carbohydrates also classified as sugar.  Sugary foods raise blood sugar levels, which makes the body have to work very hard to maintain a healthy level.  Sugars are also processed very rapidly by the body.  They breakdown into glucose, fructose and galactose, which get absorbed and used for energy.  Any glucose not needed is stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen, but once those stores are filled the rest gets stored as fat.  We consume more than enough sugar in our daily diets to fill these stores up, therefore the majority of simple sugars we eat are stored as fat.  This is not the case while exercising and post-exercise as we are constantly using the sugars for fuel as fast as our bodies can process them.  It is also better to use sports drinks or energy bars that are made from or contain glucose also known as dextrose.  Your body can process these fast to quickly provide you with the needed energy. 

Eat Complex Carbohydrates.  You need carbs for fuel, but they should be complex carbs to sustain your glycogen stores without getting stored as excess fat.  A complex carb contains fiber which allows it to be digested at a much slower rate than a carb without fiber (a simple carb).  For example, white bread (a simple carb) has no fiber and is absorbed very fast, so the unused glucose gets stored as fat.  Whole grain bread (a complex carb) has lots of fiber, so it is digested far slower than white bread.  Your body will be supplied with a slow, steady source of glucose, which it will use as fuel and replenish glycogen stores.  During exercise and post exercise, your body requires far more fuel at a much higher rate, which complex carbs are unable to sustain. At these times you need simple carbs to provide you with fuel as fast as your body needs it, during and up to an hour after exercise.

Consume foods rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, also known as polyunsaturated fatty acids.  This is an important parts of nutrition as we age, not only because of all it's health benefits, but Omega 3's play an essential role in balancing the adrenal gland.  The adrenal gland produces the hormone, Cortisol.  Cortisol has many functions essential to overall good health, like keeping your blood pressure and blood sugar levels from getting to low.  One huge effect that Cortisol has on athletic performance is its ability to control inflammation.  The common belief that taking fish oil helps lubricate your joints is not altogether true.  Taking fish oil does make your joints feel better, but not because it lubricates them. It is because taking fish oil helps balance the adrenal gland so it can produce the required amount of Cortisol to counteract inflammation, which then eases the pain.  If you can't consume enough foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids, take a high quality cold water Fish Oil like the one we manufacture.  Our fish oil contains two fatty acids
EPA(Eicosapentaenoic Acid) and DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid), which will help your adrenal gland function properly and will reduce the aches or pains in your joints, enabling you to keep the up intensity in your training.