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Endurance athletes have four fueling regimens, each necessary for success and each appropriate for a certain time in the yearly and weekly training cycles. The Main Fueling plan, eaten on a daily basis in the off-season, and all the time in season except event day and a day or two before event day, keeps an athlete lean and healthy. (See the Leaning Out and Generally Healthy Plan). The Pre-Event Fueling Plan, eaten the day or two before the event and the morning of the event, tops off the energy stores prior to an event. (For beginning athletes the long training day each week should be counted as an event, unless weight loss is desired). The Training and Event Fueling Plan keeps your energy levels high during exercise. The final plan is what you do to recharge and reward yourself after an event. Different foods and quantities are appropriate to each of these four plans. Understanding what and when to eat will help you along your way toward new peaks of athletic excellence. So what arethe components of the four eating plans? Main Eating Plan. The main all-the-time plan is a good “healthy”, balanced diet (see on following page). It is low in fats, especially the saturated fats found in butter, red meat, and deep-lard-fried foods. It includes little or no processed sugar or white flour, including cakes, cookies, and candies and white breads. (Even if the candies are labeled as athletic energy foods or drinks.) It includes generous amounts of protein ((Body builders and people looking to add maximum muscle mass: 1.8g/kg/day=0.8g/lb/day, Heavy endurance trainers looking to maintain muscle mass: 1.2g/kg/day= 0.6 g/lb/day, Light endurance trainers: 1 g/kg/day= 0.5g/lb/day, Sedentary: 0.8 g/kg/day = 0.4 g/lb/day).) The protein is distributed so that you get a little in every meal or snack. The main plan includes a lot of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and limited amounts of pasta, bread and potatoes. The starch content of the main plan depends on the amount ofexercise you do: very little on days with one hour or less of exercise, up to huge quantities if you exercise six hour or more per day. Eating in this way all the time will help make you lean no matter how much or how little you exercise. If you are losing weight, aim to lose no more than one pound per week. The pre-event fueling plan is followed starting a day (short event) or two (longer event) before the event and is like the main eating plan, with an added serving of pasty foods (pasta, brown rice, whole grain bread, or potatoes) in each meal. “An extra serving,” does not mean “as much as you can eat.” The pre-event fueling plan is lower in protein than the main eating plan as a percentage of total calories, but not in absolute amount of protein. In the final 10 hours the pre-event menu should be rich in easily digestible foods so you won’t have to carry a bowel-load of partially digested food during the event. The Training and Event fueling plan consists of very high carbohydratefoods with a little protein and almost no fat. This is where your athletic energy foods, bananas, fig bars, yams gels and sports drinks come in. If you eat enough during an event or hard training ride, you should not be ravenous immediately afterwards. If you drink enough you should need to pee within the first half hour after getting off the bike. Your urine should be C&C (Clear and Copious). Gel-type energy foods give you a big rush and a big crash, so be sure to carry enough for the whole race or session, roughly one every 25-30 minutes from beginning to end, or start using them later. Carry enough food that you can begin eating about 45 minutes in and have a big bite every 15-20 minutes throughout the event or session. A total of 250-350 calories per hour works for most athletes but you’ll have to find your own level. More is better so long as you don’t end up feeling full or bloated. See below for a list of recommended foods and drinks. The post-event refueling plan serves torecharge you physically and psychologically. Immediately after a race or hard training session eat or drink some easily digestible carbohydrate and protein and drink a lot of water. Recovery drinks, whether they are laboratory-based mixes or yogurt/egg/banana/fruit juice smoothies, can really help you get back-in gear for the next day, but avoid high glycemic index foods more than 20 minutes after exercise. After your warm-down and getting into clean clothing go for some food you crave. This is the only time of the week (and year) that I would recommend eating a double-bacon cheeseburger with fries (and a malt. If you exercised five hours or more) If you’ve stuck to your other three eating plans and raced sixty miles or more, you’ve earned it! The Leaning Out and Generally Healthy Eating Plan This plan consists of a number of rules, some of which will be important in losing unwanted weight. I can’t say for sure which components are most important to you, so try to follow all of them asclosely as you can. You’ll also read underlying concepts before getting the recommendations. This way you will understand why you are doing what you are doing, and that should help keep up your motivation. If you restrict your food intake such that the calories you eat are less than you expend in your daily life, you will lose weight. This is true whether you eat bizarre combinations of foods, liquid foods only, or a healthy variety of wholesome foods. To achieve a weight-losing condition you can increase your activity level, or decrease your food intake, or both. It should be noted however that many hours of hard exercise are needed to use the calories ingested in a single large meal. Therefore it is much easier to lose weight by reducing calorie input while maintaining activity than by maintaining calorie input while increasing activity. Any eating plan that decreases your food intake, whether it is by eating only grapefruit or only butter, or counting and restricting total calories,or carefully counting and balancing fat, carbohydrate and protein, will result in weight loss if it reduces caloric intake below expenditure. Only a good, healthy eating plan will result in extensive fat loss while maintaining performance however. The foods you eat also determine how long you will go before you are very hungry again, so choice of food can affect how easy or hard it is to cut total calories. Two important questions: Can you stick to the regimen long enough to get to your target weight and body composition? And can you adopt a life-style that will allow you to stay at your targets? Once you have lost weight, if you return to your old eating habits, you will return to your old weight. Weight loss must be achieved through changes that you can sustain. A warning: hunger is your body’s way of letting you know that you are losing weight, that you are in a mode of metabolism in which you are metabolizing your own fat and muscle tissues for fuel. YOU MUST EXPERIENCE SOME HUNGERTO LOSE WEIGHT OR FAT. However, if you experience tremendous hunger you will probably binge overeat, so this eating plan is designed to keep you from experiencing really tremendous hunger. I’d like you to be neutral or a little bit hungry and lose weight slowly. On super restrictive diets you may lose weight faster, but you will also experience more hunger and be more likely to go off the diet. Most people can safely and comfortably lose between one half pound and one pound per week while maintaining energy levels for exercise and a sunny disposition. People who are dramatically overweight can safely lose somewhat faster. No one should lose more than 2 pounds per week for an extended period. You experience hunger when your blood sugar drops as well as in some other situations. Here’s a short and simple biochemistry lesson. After a meal or a sugary snack, your blood sugar rises as food is digested in your gut and absorbed through your intestine.
blood sugar levels during exercise     blood sugar levels chart a1c