Nutrition Tuesday - Healthy Carbs
How often are you paying attention to how you're fueling your body?
What we eat as athletes is so important because it fuels our bodies for our performance, training and recovery. We need to have a suitable diet that provides us with enough energy and nutrients to meet the demands of training and exercise, as well as when we are performing at the field.
"Carbohydrates are typically the preferable fuel source for many athletes, particularly for high intensity and long duration exercise. This is because they supply ample glycogen storage and blood glucose to fuel the demands of exercise." (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/.../nutrition-for...) - See this article to know how many grams of carbs you should be consuming.
Considering that as a pitcher, we easily check off high intensity AND long duration, it's safe to say that we should be extremely aware of the types of carbs we are putting into our bodies to help us perform optimally the entire game, every inning, every pitch.
Stuffing your face with high sugar foods before or after practices and games isn't the best choice. It will lead to your body feeling sluggish and tired before you even start the first inning or warm-up.
Here are a few great sources of carbs that you need to be adding into your daily diet and especially during game time for performance and recovery:
***Black beans, whole wheat pasta, potatoes, oats, whole wheat bread, lentils, brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa and certain fruits like berries and bananas.
Maybe try making some energy bites at home to take to your tournament that you can keep in a baggie on the bench, an avocado sandwich and berries for after the game and perhaps a sweet potato with a lean protein for dinner.
Always remember that your body will perform the way you feed it, so take itseriously and feed it to make it run like a well oiled machine.
I’ll list a few sites for you that I like to use for healthy carb recipes below:
https://fitmencook.com/recipes/
https://www.taste.com.au/galleries/25-good-carb-recipes-diet-needs/6e3rxl7a
https://greenletes.com/healthy-carbs-for-athletes/
https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/collections/gallery/84-healthy-carb-recipes-you-should-be-eating/fr2fj1d6
