There are hundreds of blogs out there looking at what to eat on race day (believe me, we’ve written quite a few!), but what you’re eating during your training is critical too.In this month’s blog, Go Faster Food’s nutritionist Sophie Heath gives you her three top tips to cut down on the processed foods in your diet.
Having a healthy diet day to day will help with your immune health (keeping the lurgy at bay); adaptation to training (making sure you get the most out of your efforts); and recovery and injury prevention (ensuring you have healthy muscles, bones and joints).
Using the following three tips, you can start your journey towards eating more healthily and begin to reap the benefits.
Treat cupboard makeover
Who doesn’t have a treat cupboard?! I bet many of you will have a sneaky biscuit or two due to boredom, or even sometimes laziness. If it’s there, you have the option to eat it. So, my first tip would be to get rid of the trash in your cupboards – if it’s not there you can’t eat it! From there aim to fill that cupboard with healthier (but still tasty!) goodies. Nuts and dried fruit mixes are a great option as they’re high in fibre and are a source of protein and healthy fats – all keeping you much more satisfied than a sugar-laden biscuit. One of my all time favourites has to be peanut butter (chunky for me!) spread on apple – give it a go! You can, of course, also make some delicious homemade energy balls, here’s a great recipe Kate has come up with.
Plan ahead
Many of us fall into the trap of buying more processed foods because we have failed to plan – ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ as they say!! I always carry a healthy snack in my bag (normally some nuts, or a snack bar like Kate Percy’s Go Bites) in case of emergencies – I don’t want to get caught out hungry on the run because I know I will be tempted by a treat! Be prepared and plan ahead. It’s always a great idea to have a rough plan of what you will cook each night and get the ingredients in ahead of that time. If you leave it to the last minute and go supermarket shopping hungry you’re more likely to head for some processed fast food. Trust me, I’ve been there!
Read the labels
Get label savvy and understand more about which packaged foods are healthier, and which ones are processed and refined. A great way to do this is to look at the label, especially the ingredients list. I always say if there are words on the ingredients list that you don’t understand, and the ingredients list is extremely long, the likelihood is that it will contain some artificial ingredients and will be highly processed or refined – and therefore not very nutritious! Go for foods that have simple ingredients that you know.
*This is a sponsored blog provided on behalf of Go Faster Food*