Athletes have high energy and nutrient requirements to fuel their performance and meet their body’s needs for overall health and well-being. Some athletes even need up to three times the amount of calories as a sedentary individual. Cyclists, rowers, endurance runners and even some team sport athletes may need up to 4000-6000 calories per day to fuel and recover from their high training load. Consuming this amount of food in three meals, especially with long exercise sessions, can be very challenging. One of the barriers to these athletes meeting their energy requirements is time and satiety. While snacking is often viewed as unhealthy for the general population (depending on the type of snack), athletes need to understand that snacks are a useful way to meet their daily nutritional goals. Snacking plays a crucial role in the nutrition and performance of athletes, offering a convenient way to ensure they are fueling their bodies correctly throughout the day and around their training schedules. This blog post delves into why snacks are important for athletes, common snacking mistakes to avoid, and suggests some snacks tailored for different purposes. One of the primary benefits of snacking is the ability to distribute food consumption evenly throughout the day. This strategy enables athletes with high energy demands to consume smaller main meals by incorporating multiple snacks during the day, ensuring they can complete their meals more comfortably. Often, these athletes face challenges in meeting their energy requirements because of the vast quantities of food they need to consume daily. Training multiple times a day for up to two hours at a stretch is incredibly time-consuming and can hinder some athletes from either preparing large meals or consuming substantial quantities of food between two training sessions. This limitation is often due to the time constraints that don't allow for either cooking or lengthy meal times. Moreover, eating large amounts of food in a short interval can lead to gut discomfort, potentially disrupting their subsequent training session. Snacks can also be very useful when planning food timing around training. Snacks can serve as both pre-workout and post-workout options. This can be useful when trying to top up your glycogen stores right before training or an event, thus helping you perform better. Snacks can also serve as post-workout options, supplying you with enough carbohydrate and protein to enhance training adaptation and promote recovery. Lastly, by having high-protein snacks throughout the day, athletes can stimulate muscle protein synthesis more often, enhancing muscle growth and adaptation from training. Snacks are an essential ally for athletes with high energy requirements, assisting them and others in optimizing the timing of nutrient intake to enhance performance and recovery. However, numerous athletes encounter pitfalls in their approach to snacking, which hampers the potential benefits. When people think of snacks, they may envision chocolate, candies, and chips, but this is far from what athletes require. Snacks should serve a purpose in an athlete’s diet and should be as high in quality as their meals. Many athletes opt for less-than-ideal snack choices, such as chips, pies, and sugary sodas. Depending on their goals, athletes' snacks should be either calorie-rich and nutrient-dense or high in carbohydrates or protein. The need for a high caloric intake does not justify consuming an entire bag of chips when they could opt for a more balanced alternative, like peanut butter toast with fruit and a glass of milk, for instance. This approach not only meets the calorie requirement but also provides a healthier, more nutritious balance. For athletes with high energy requirements, looking for energy and nutrient-dense snacks to meet daily energy goals, consider the following: Including healthy fats in your snacks can increase calorie content without adding too much volume. Good options include olive oil, avocado, peanut butter, and nuts. Turning snacks into smaller meals with a range of nutrients, including carbohydrates and protein, can help meet nutrient goals for the day. Smoothies are an easy way to consume a lot of calories and nutrients in a small amount of food. For athletes who struggle to get enough calories despite adequate snacking, mass gainers can be useful, but be careful not to overdo it and ensure they are batch-tested. Snacks can also be another opportunity to incorporate more vegetables and fruits. Including fruits in your smoothie or vegetables such as spinach will be beneficial. For those aiming to optimize performance with high-quality pre-workout snacks, consider the following: Pre-workout snacks should be high in carbohydrates, low in fiber and fat, and moderate in protein content to ensure easy digestion and glucose provision during training while preventing gut discomfort. Fruits, such as very ripe bananas, with low fiber content and mostly fructose and glucose, make great pre-workout snacks. Aim to consume pre-workout snacks 1 hour to 30 minutes before exercise, depending on the type of snack. Lastly, here is what to look for in a snack when seeking a good post-workout option: Post-workout snacks should contain 20g to 30g of protein and a moderate to high amount of carbohydrates to optimize muscle protein synthesis and glycogen replenishment. Combining protein and carbohydrates has been shown to improve glycogen store replenishment. Consume your post-workout snack immediately up to 1 hour after exercise to reap the best benefits. In conclusion, snacks are a valuable tool for a range of athletes and goals. They can help athletes meet their energy and nutrient daily goals while aiding others in optimising performance and recovery Here is a list of pre and post workout snacks we often recommend to clients: Pre-workout snacks: Muesli bars Fresh fruits (e.g., apples, bananas, oranges) Greek yogurt with berries Whole grain crackers with hummus Rice cakes 3 Weetbix Whole grain toast with avocado A bagel (good for large training days) Here are some high-protein snack options: Greek yogurt/High-Protein yogurt Hard-boiled eggs Cottage cheese and crackers Protein bars or protein shakes Jerky (beef, turkey, or chicken) Tuna and crackers A handful of almonds Protein nut bar Small ham + cheese wrap Protein smoothies with whey protein powder and fruits

In the realm of fitness and performance, the intimate connection between training and nutrition is undeniable. Thinking about your nutrition is sometimes challenging. In fact, planning your nutrition adequately requires consideration of many factors. The type of sport you play, the energy system you utilise, when you will be able to eat, and when you can cook, are all crucial elements. These questions can be answered by thinking ahead and planning your training so that you can anticipate and optimise your nutrition. Planning your week in advance provides consistency. By knowing every Monday what your training will entail, you can have a good understanding of what foods you will need to eat to meet your nutrient requirements. Below are some good questions to ask yourself about your training to help you better prepare How many times will you be training this week? This will dictate how much food you need to recover and fuel your training. When will you be training? This will dictate when you will eat and what food you will need to fuel your training. For example, if you train early in the morning, opt for easily digestible carbohydrates to fuel your session while avoiding gut discomfort. What type of training is it? Answering this question will determine how much carbohydrates or protein you require to fuel and recover from your training. In what phase of your training are you? This will help you gauge how much food you need. If you are in a challenging training block, you will require more food than during a de-load week. These four simple questions will guide you in understanding how much you need to eat, when you can eat, and the optimal amounts of each nutrient for your training and recovery. Another key aspect of organisation is planing your Grocery Shopping! Once you have determined your nutritional needs for the week, you can start planning your grocery shopping list. Once again, ask yourself the following questions: How much carbohydrate will you need? When will you be able to cook? This will allow you to know what type of food you need to buy, depending on how long they stay good in your fridge, whether raw or cooked How much protein will you need? Will you be away from home most of the day?  What snacks will you need throughout the day? By answering these questions, you will know which foods to buy and which meals to cook, as some meals are easier to transport/consume away from home than others. Finally, once you have purchase your food, I highly recommend meal prepping to save time and money! Athletes need to juggle training, recovery, work, and other obligations, making their lives very busy. Cooking is another time consuming tasks added to the long list of tasks an athlete needs to achieve by the end of every day. Instead of cooking at every meal, meal prepping allows you to spend one hour twice a week to cook all your meals and then freeze or refrigerate them to be ready whenever you need them. This technique allows you to save a significant amount of time. If we estimate that, on average, someone spends 30 minutes for each lunch and dinner they cook, they spend an average of 7 hours a week cooking. Using meal prepping, you would be able to shorten this to approximately 2 hours per week. Another advantage of meal prepping is the cost efficiency. By cooking in larger quantities, you will need to buy food in bulk rather than in single servings. In the long run, buying in bulk will save you a significant amount of money! Lastly, by having all your meals ready in advance, you will ensure you always have the food required to fuel and recover from your exercises. This will prevent skipping meals due to not having time to cook or resorting to fast-food and takeaway options that don’t meet your nutritional requirements for performance. A disadvantage of meal prepping is the decrease in the variety of meals you eat during the week. Instead of eating a different meal every time, you will likely be swapping between 2 to 4 options for the week. Additionally, people meal prepping need to make sure they have a powerful fridge or freezer that will allow them to keep their food safe and edible throughout the week. In the demanding realm of an athlete's life, the saying "Being organised is being in control" becomes a guiding principle. Through the intricate relationship of training, nutrition, and the constraints of a hectic schedule, strategic planning emerges as an indispensable tool. From anticipating training needs to meticulous grocery shopping and embracing the time-saving efficiency of meal prepping, this organised approach not only defines clear objectives but also liberates valuable time and financial resources. By planning, athletes ensure a consistent and tailored nutritional intake, mitigating the risk of skipping meals or resorting to suboptimal alternatives.

A passion of mine is taking my learnings from professional sport and transferring them to the work I do with the general population. A benefit of being exposed to top level athletes is that I can effectively identify missing pieces from a client's nutritional puzzle. From there, I look to educate my clients and increase their understanding of performance nutrition principles. By doing this, you ensure change is long lasting and positive. A pattern that is increasingly evident in clients I work with - from regular gym-goers to higher level athletes - is failing to consider nutrient timing in their nutrition practices. Quite simply, nutrient timing is when you consume your nutrients. The focus of good nutrient timing should be to provide nutrients at appropriate times to enhance performance, energy, and health. The most common mistake I see related to nutrient timing is having long periods between food intake. Often, this is a result of getting too busy at work. Risks from this pattern include falling energy levels and poor recovery from exercise. This problem is escalated if this individual is engaging in regular higher intensity or strength based exercise that damages our muscles. Often my clients are surprised to learn that when you eat your food is at times equally as important as how much you are eating - yet, our eating patterns do not reflect this fact. This is especially true when it comes to protein consumption. Many individuals commonly consume small amounts of protein at breakfast and lunch, opting instead for predominantly carbohydrate based meals because they are more accessible, easier to prepare, and more affordable if you are buying food ‘on-the-go’. An example of this would be someone in a morning rush finding it easier to just grab a scone on the way to work as opposed to getting up earlier and preparing a more balanced meal. A common obstacle I have to tackle with my clients is finding effective ways of getting more protein into their breakfast and lunch meals to support muscle growth and repair, as opposed to simply relying on the dinner meal for the bulk of their protein intake. Spreading protein intake across the day enhances muscle recovery and growth which are two key factors for anyone looking to improve their body composition. One of the easiest habits my clients have been using recently is adding high protein yoghurt to their breakfast cereal to boost their morning protein intake. Other high protein options that can be great to take to work include a couple of boiled eggs or a can of tuna. By having these snacks available to us we can ensure that when ‘life’ does get in the way we can still reach our necessary protein intake. Another particular interest of mine is educating younger athletes on sports nutrition. Recently I have been presenting sports nutrition workshops to different schools within the Auckland region including Auckland Grammar and St Kentigerns College. These focus on educating young athletes on their nutrition needs. Over the last 10-20 years, high school sports have become increasingly demanding. High training loads, particularly in those who are playing multiple sports, are common within younger athletes. There is also an increased expectation of young athletes to engage in comprehensive strength and conditioning programmes without being provided with the necessary nutrition knowledge to match their training demand. When you combine this with a busy school schedule, social commitments and other external stressors, the risk of under-fueling in young athletes is significant. Worrying effects of under-fuelling can be sub-optimal growth and development and an inability to focus in class. A common theme when working with younger athletes, particularly females, is their consistent aversion to carbohydrates. Often vilified within the nutrition community, carbohydrates are the primary fuel for athletes and decreasing their intake can cause a myriad of problems for those engaging in regular high intensity exercise. The most notable being fatigue and decreased stores of glycogen in the muscle which is our key fuel during high intensity exercise. A wide range of complex carbohydrates such as wholemeal breads, rice and pastas are commonly avoided by this group. A prevailing attitude towards these foods from young female athletes is that they are responsible for ‘making people fat’. The problem of carbohydrate aversion is accentuated when combined with increasing societal pressure to be ‘thin’ or ‘ripped’ - largely driven by misinformation online, many young athletes I work with view carbohydrates as the enemy. Helping young athletes understand that quality carbohydrates are crucial to performance is a key aspect of working with this population. A client that has enjoyed particular success recently is an elite young netballer who was following an intermittent fasting style diet. Through education and an increased understanding of the importance of carbohydrates for health and performance, she was able to massively increase her energy levels by making quality carbohydrates a feature of her main meals and snacks. Overall, I love helping athletes on their journey to be happier, healthier and higher performing. If any of this information resonated with you and you are interested in improving your performance and knowledge of sports nutrition, consider filling in the prospective athlete form on my website

A common misconception in the fitness industry is that lifting weights is reserved for bodybuilders, however, this is far from the truth. Strength-based workouts are the perfect compliment to more cardio-based exercise and the benefits are numerous. Gyms these days have a wide range of equipment that provide opportunity for an extensive range of people to regularly engage in strength-based exercise which promote increased muscle mass. Some key positive effects of having more muscle mass include: reduced sarcopenia, better blood-sugar control, increased ability to perform daily tasks, and improvement of psychological wellbeing. In this blog I go over some key benefits of strength-based training and what you can do to support your training from a nutritional standpoint. The gradual loss of muscle and strength as we age, termed sarcopenia, begins to occur in our 40’s. Sarcopenia and the loss of muscle is consistently linked with a lower-life expectancy. Strength-based exercises that promote muscle growth are great for decreasing the effects of sarcopenia as we age For a lot of people, high refined carbohydrate food intake and long periods of sedentary activity promote consistently high blood-sugar levels which can commonly lead to type 2 diabetes. One of the easiest ways to improve our body’s ability to maintain a healthy blood-sugar level is to increase muscle mass. This is because muscle soaks up excess glucose both during exercise and in periods of rest. Lifting weights is also effective for maintaining muscle and joint function throughout the lifecycle, improving quality of life as daily tasks can be more easily performed: things like carrying the groceries and mowing the lawns become easier for people when they engage in strength-based exercises because they require less effort. Strength training, like all forms of exercise, is also a tool to improve mental wellbeing. Studies consistently show that individuals who engage in regular strength training have lower rates of anxiety and depression and improved cognitive ability. Furthermore, the endorphins released from strength training will leave you feeling great for the rest of the day. There are a few key nutritional strategies we can use to support strength-based training. Firstly, we must consider that lifting weights uses energy and we need to fuel our body in a way that supports strength training. During high intensity exercise like weightlifting your body tends to rely on carbohydrates for fuel. Most people will consume adequate carbohydrates to support strength training in their standard food intake. If you are an individual who is on the lower carbohydrate end of the spectrum, adding slightly more carbohydrates will improve your ability to accel in strength-based training. Some good carbohydrate sources throughout the day include foods like kumura, whole-grain bread, brown-rice and oats. These are great options because they are slow digesting carbohydrates that provide a long-lasting source of energy. Aiming to have a meal with a decent source of slow digesting carbohydrates around 2-3 hours is a great option to optimise performance and energy. Good foods to consume just before a workout, particularly if you haven’t eaten anything in the couple of hours prior, include fruits, yoghurt or a granola bar. These are good options because they are faster digesting and provide a more immediate source of energy. These foods are good to consume in the hour before and after a workout to refuel your muscles. It will be no surprise to most people that protein is the key nutrient that supports muscle recovery and growth. During weightlifting exercises our muscles are broken down due to the stress put on them. For our muscles to recover and grow optimally, we need to consume more protein than usual. In New Zealand the ‘Ministry of Health’ recommends that the average male needs to consume around 70 grams of protein and the average female needs to consume around 50 grams to meet their minimum requirements. Note that this is the minimum requirement needed and a growing body of research suggests that consuming more protein is better for our health. Most New Zealander’s comfortably meet their minimum protein needs via their normal food intake, however, our demands increase when we begin to put further stress on our muscles via strength-based training. The consensus is that someone lifting weights should consume a minimum of 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. For the average 70-kilogram person this would equate to 112 grams of protein per day (70 x 1.6 = 112g). To quantify this in ‘food-terms’ the difference between the minimum recommended intake of 70 grams per day and 112 grams per day equates to about one medium sized chicken breast. A good habit to get into is reading food labels to educate yourself on how much protein is in different foods. After doing this for a while, you become aware of how much protein you are consuming throughout the day to ensure you are meeting your increased needs. Good protein sources include chicken, fish and eggs. On the plant-based front, foods rich in protein include tofu, lentils and quinoa. A key recommendation related to protein intake is that we want to evenly space our protein intake throughout the day to optimise muscle growth and recovery. This recommendation is in contrast with the average modern way of eating which often features smaller amounts of protein with breakfast, a slightly larger amount with lunch and then a significant amount with dinner. This is not optimal as there is only one meal (dinner) throughout the day where we are optimising for muscle growth. A good guide to aim for is having around 20-25 grams of protein at each main meal with a focus on at least one of these meals being within two hours of working out. From a broader perspective, a diet rich in whole and unprocessed foods should be the focus of the weightlifter to ensure that micronutrient needs are met to support general health and energy levels. The world of supplements can be daunting for the new gym-goer. Luckily for our bank account, supplements are not a necessity for the average weightlifter. Some supplements that may be useful include a protein powder, creatine and caffeine. Whey protein, the most common type of protein supplement, is derived from cows’ milk and is a completely safe supplement that supports muscle growth. Whey protein is also an easy and affordable source of protein that can be taken ‘on-the-go’. Some people will struggle to consume enough protein via their food intake so having a whey protein shake after a workout or in spaces between main meals can be a good practice to get into. For plant-based eaters, plant proteins provide a similar benefit and are equally safe to consume. Creatine is one of the most widely researched supplements in existence and consistently results in improvements in strength and power while also delaying the onset of fatigue. Creatine is found naturally within muscles. By supplementing with creatine, we boost our ability to produce ATP which is the molecule our body uses for muscle contraction. For the intermediate lifter who is interested in supplementation – creatine is a solid choice. Finally, caffeine is a friend of the weightlifter. Caffeine helps with strength-based exercises by improving muscle strength and power. It certainly isn’t a necessity, but some caffeine may help power you through more gruelling workouts and there are limited side effects assuming you are not someone who struggles with sleeping after increased caffeine consumption. All things considered; strength-based training is a great way to improve overall health. If you are interested in strength-based training like weightlifting, consider purchasing a couple of sessions with a personal trainer to ensure you are completing exercises with the correct form to avoid injury. After that, the nutrition principles that support strength-based training are relatively simple. Consider that we need to fuel appropriately with carbohydrates and have sufficient protein for our muscles to grow and recover. As always, focus on a diet with mostly whole foods to support overall health. From these basic nutrition principles, you are 90% of the way there and you can worry about the finer details as you become more experienced in the gym.