INTRODUCING BECCA
Our nutritionist Becca is a retired GB rower who studied nutrition at university alongside her training. She’s a world silver medalist and is now a mum to a young toddler. Becca coaches group classes and personal training at CrossFit Shropshire as well as seeing our nutrition clients.
Becca has shared her thoughts on the importance of good nutrition to help you train below.
FOOD IS YOUR FUEL
Eating well and exercising come hand in hand, or at least they should for you! Having good nutrition gives you more energy and motivation to train. But most importantly it gives you the correct fuel to train too. Then recovery comes into play- it’s much easier to bounce back well from tough training when you’re putting the correct things into your body.
It’s important to come to training with some food in your system. Having a snack 1-2 hours before your session is good timing for this. If you haven’t eaten for a long time you will feel lethargic when you exercise and may even feel faint. There’s a risk that you can pass out if you push it to the extremes and your blood sugar is too low. However if you eat too close to exercising you will feel too full and are likely to feel sick or get a stitch as you move. So the 1-2 hour snack is your friend!
CAN I HAVE A TREAT?
Although I obviously advocate for a healthy balanced diet that doesn’t mean that you can’t have any treats. In fact it’s far from it! When I was an athlete I’d often be asked “are you on a strict food plan? I bet you aren’t allowed to eat any junk?”. The truth is we had plenty of treats because we earned them and they were easily burned off!
If you’re trying to lose weight you obviously don’t want to counteract all of your exercise by eating a ton of treats. We all know that too many of them won’t give you a balanced diet. It’s just that when you look at it logically- as an active person you can afford to eat them much more than a sedentary person can! So the occasional sweet or takeaway isn’t going to do you any harm. It can even maintain your motivation to continue eating well long term rather than using an ‘all or nothing’ approach.
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ADVICE AND BESPOKE FOOD PLANS
If you are interested in speaking to Becca directly about your specific nutrition you can get in touch here.