Best Foods For Optimal Athletic Performance From Sport Nutrition Experts

Healthy foods fuel athletes’ bodies to keep them at the optimum performance. Thanks to several sport nutrition experts in every part of the world, sports wouldn’t have been this interesting without their deliberate efforts to refine sports nutrition for athletes to perform their best.

Sports nutrition promotes endurance, strength, and lasting career amongst athletes in different sport categories. It helps athletes get the best out of their workouts and improve their athletic capabilities.

If you are an athlete, eating healthy foods should be your top priority to maximize your fitness efforts. Whenever you engage in exercises and training, your body releases energy, which means you have lost some essential nutrients when the training ends. To stay active and fit for the next training session, you would have to replenish those lost nutrients with the right foods that can nourish your body to the fullest.

Here some of the best foods recommended by sport nutrition experts to help you optimize your athletic performance both in training and on the field.

1. Oatmeal

Sport nutrition experts often recommend oatmeal as a good source of energy, carbs, and fiber that helps athletes to feel full for a long time. Oatmeal is a hundred percent whole grain, and it helps athletes reduce the risk of developing heart disease.

As much as oatmeal can boost athletes’ performance, it is also a delicious way of gaining moderate weight for stamina and physical and mental balance. Based on sport nutrition experts’ recommendations, steel-cut oats boost athletic performance than instant oats. Instant oats contain a higher portion of glycemic index, which can cause athlete’s insulin levels to spike, resulting in storing up carbs as fat.

2. Pasta

While many sport nutrition guides despise carbs as bad nutrients for athletes, carbs are not entirely bad. Indeed, they are essential in every athlete’s diet. When your body burns protein and fats, it would first have to convert them into carbs before supplying the right nutrients to the body, creating added stress. Eating foods that can supply direct carbs to the body is better to nourish the body without making it work harder.

Pasta contains fiber, but you don’t have to take it in excess before stepping on the field to compete to avoid gastrointestinal stress. Sports nutritionists recommend that whole grain pasta is better than white pasta because the former contains less sugar and can also aid better athletic performance.

3. Berries

Berries are very good for optimal athletic performance. Blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries are delicious berries that are highly rich in antioxidants. Meanwhile, antioxidants are an essential element of sports nutrition and help replenish lost nutrients after several physical activities.

Barker berries are also great for the best athletic performance. They contain phytochemicals and some other preventive elements that prevent oxidative stress, which occurs in an athlete’s body during and after strenuous activities.

Berries also help preserve your muscle strength as you grow older, so they serve long term purposes.

4. Nuts

Nuts are good sources of protein and healthy fats. Sports nutritionists refer to nuts as one of the most essentials in athletes’ diet. Eating your nuts with carb will help put your blood sugar on a moderate level and will also sustain the carb for a long period, instead of burning them off immediately you eat.

Another very impor6tant reason sports nutritionists advise athletes to eat nuts often is that nuts digest easily and don’t upset the stomach. It is wrong for athletes to eat foods that will make them heavy for a long time, so nuts become a favorite.

Aside from the quick and easy digestion advantage, eating nuts will supply your body with fiber and antioxidants such as vitamin E. These antioxidants found in nuts strengthens the bone, which is required for optimal athletic performance.

5. Banana

Generally, fruits are important sports nutrition elements that help athletes deliver their best performance. Bananas are good sources of natural electrolytes that make them important for replenishing lost nutrients after workouts or training sessions. Bananas have a very low-calorie content but very high in potassium. That makes them a better post-workout snack.

Eating at least one banana every day is good for every athlete. It helps regulate fluid intake. You might have learned that athletes need to drink as much water as possible to stay hydrated; this is why you need to add bananas to your daily meal to help control your hydration.

6. Salmon

This oily fish is a mainstay in the diet of every athlete who cares for an excellent performance. Salmon is packed with protein, which helps build and repair muscle and omega 3 fatty acids that help minimize the inflammation that may occur due to frequent athletic activities.

Sports nutritionists proved that salmon naturally cleanses the artery, which makes the fish a healthy and delicious way of preventing heart diseases, which can affect athlete’s performance both in training on the field.

Meanwhile, eating salmon does not have to be boring. You can get dynamic with the oily fish and prepare it with your salads, burgers, or pasta. Getting creative with salmon will not only make you get an eight-ounce serving per week but also give you a greater taste to enjoy.

7. Cherries

Cherries are known for their high antioxidant concentration, which helps you prevent muscle pain after the daily workout or training sessions. Cherries help reduce inflammation, which causes pains in many joints in the body.

Aside from eating fresh cherries, drinking cherry juice is another enjoyable way to reduce muscle damages, which may occur duri8ng exercises.

In Conclusion

Eating healthy foods is the best way to keep your performance at the highest level. Ask many successful athletes around you; they will tell you that poor eating habits will cost you those prestigious medals and hurt your career. Eating foods highly rich in vitamins, protein, and fibers has numerous benefits on your health, performance, and career.

Whether you participate in sport for recreational or competition purposes, you need to take sports nutrition more seriously to get the right nutrients to fuel your body for continual high-intensity activities.

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