Pro diet guide for perfect fitness competition body
What you eat determines how you look. This fact remains true even in the fitness modeling world. Before will start digging deep into a professional diet guide for the fitness competition body, it is important to be clear about a salient fact: the quality and amount of food you eat significantly impact your body composition and overall performance.
A useful diet guide aids quick recovery after your workout sessions and gives you a competitive advantage in any fitness competition. Generally, in every fitness competition, your body is the center of attention when you stand in front of judges. So, knowing how much your food can affect your and your fitness modeling ambition, you can’t afford to take your workout nutrition for granted.
Typically, athletes eat before, during, and after workouts to replenish energy stores, increase muscle size, and repair damages caused by intense physical activity. But, aside from all that, eating before, during, and after your workout can help you build the perfect body you desire and come back from the fitness competition as a champion.
Getting started, let’s consider a professional guide concerning what you should eat before, during, and after each workout session for the best result. You can also follow this guide before, during, and after the fitness competition.
Before workouts/competition.
Based on professional recommendations, it is good to eat a balanced diet that contains carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the right proportion about 12 hours before your workout sessions or the competition. Note that you don’t have to put a big portion on your plate. That could only reduce the meal’s effectiveness in your body or, worse still, make it counterproductive. Eating smaller but healthy foods is the key.
Eating a healthy meal containing balanced nutrients in the right proportion is the beginning of your journey to your fitness competition. Not only that, it will save you from stomach distress and help you maintain your blood sugar. A study showed that athletes who eat healthy food before working out tend to feel more energetic during training than those that did not.
A good sample of a pre-workout meal for a perfect fitness competition body should contain about 4 ounces of leans meat, 8 ounces of sweet potato, 2 cups of vegetables with olive oil dressing. Does that seems too much, try a piece of apple, two pieces of string cheese, and half a mixed nuts.
During workouts/competition
What you eat during a workout determines how long you will endure in your daily training sessions. As much as you need to stay light while working out, it is also helpful to eat while lifting those gears to sustain your energy, strength, and balance.
Many of the fitness competitions allow athletes to eat while the competition is on for better performance. Generally, a sports drink is always on the recommendation list for an athlete to stay active during competition. The sports drink should contain at least 30 grams of carbohydrates and about 15 grams of protein. Ideally, it would help if you drank it every hour of the exercise for better workout performance.
If the fitness competition extends beyond a day, you need to make sure you drink your sports drinks throughout the days to complement your meals. Your sports drink can be a typical homemade blend or pre-formulated ones with rapidly digesting carbohydrates such as maltodextrin, glucose, dextrose, and more.
After training/competition
You need two specific nutrients on your post-workout meal – carbohydrates to replace your lost muscle glycogen and protein for protein synthesis. I would not give precise specifications for this; think of any meal that meets the requirement, and you are ready to go.
However, most athletes prefer to take their meal in the form of liquid. Many of them like to take sports drinks with rapidly digesting protein and carbohydrates that aids quick recovery, digest quickly, and usually well tolerated.
If you are finding it difficult to choose the right food to complement your training sessions, here a few options;
Examples of carb-dense food include yam, potato, brown rice, quinoa, whole grain bread, oats, and whole-grain pasta.
Examples of protein-rich foods include eggs, beans, peas, fish, meat, tofu, and tempeh.
Examples of fruit and veggies with high nutrients include broccoli, lettuce, spinach, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, peppers, asparagus, green beans, berries, apples, melon, and pineapple.
Essential nutrition tips for fitness competition body
Although this article centers on healthy foods you can eat to complement your workout efforts to build the perfect body for a fitness compunction, here are a few essential tips to follow with a commitment for optimal body composition and performance.
- Eat every 4 hours
Those that eat once a while tends to eat more than necessary to fill empty spaces in their stomach. At the same time, overeating can deform your fitness and disqualify you from participating in fitness competitions. Eating frequently helps you eat a smaller portion at a time, stabilize your blood sugar, aid in quick recovery and body composition.
- Eat food highly rich in lean protein
Protein is essential in building a fitness competition body. It helps build and repair the muscles. You can work out as you wish, but without feeding your body with the right amount of protein it needs, your muscles will not grow. You might not be able to eat up to the correct amount per day, but you can add protein to all your daily meals.
- Avoid excess carbs
Crab-rich foods such as pasta, bread, and others are mostly right to eat after workouts. That is the most appropriate time you can give your body what it needed the most. Carbs are not bad in a fitness diet; however, make sure you eat them only when necessary.
- Eat veggies and fruit as much as you can.
Unlike carbs, you can eat your veggies and fruits anytime you like. On average, you expected to eat about 15 servings of veggies per day. This might seem somewhat hard to achieve, but the easiest way is to add it to your meal every time you eat.
- Eat healthy fats
Most nutritionists will tell you fat is not good if you want to build a fitness competition body. Well, that’s far from the truth. There are three different types of fats. They include saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Eating all three types can help you lose fats and improve your health. Fats are good sources of energy more than carbs. They can help you during your workout sessions.
Conclusion
It is essential that you develop a deliberate healthy eating habit to build a perfect body that fits all kinds of sport competition. Following a fitness diet guide is not that easy; you will have to discipline yourself to learn the new eating culture to build your desired fitness modeling body.
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