Foyle Cycling Club - Nutrition Tips

3 Quick & SIMPLE Nutrition Tips to Get You Leaner, Stronger,
and Healthier for Riding at Your Best.

Your nutrition can be your BIGGEST alley for performance and
feeling strong. If you're not on top of it, it can be your WORST
enemy and actually work against all your hard training and effort!

The trick to getting more out of your nutrition is SIMPLICITY!

QUICK & SIMPLE NUTRITION TIP 1: Eat five to six small meals
every 3 to 4 hours a day. This is NOT new. MOST of you have
heard this before. It is the lifeblood of maintaining your energy,
stoking your metabolism to burn fat, and keeping you lean & fast!

Then why when I speak with so many of you and ask you about
your eating you tell me you skip breakfast, maybe have lunch
and basically gorge for dinner!? Then you ask me why you are
not feeling energetic and holding on to too much extra baggage!

Not rocket science! Don't make things harder than they have to
be. Plan your meals for the day. Keep them small and balanced.
Choose "energy driving" foods. Stay CONSISTENT!

Here is a steadfast meal plan you can use as a template to
begin to understand the true power of frequent eating:

BREAKFAST: One Scrambled Egg & One Serving Oatmeal w/
one 6 oz. glass of juice if desired.

SNACK 1: 1/2 Apple or orange with a small handful of almonds.

LUNCH: 1/2 Sandwich with lean meat, lettuce, tomato, and
possibly a side salad or organic corn chips and salsa.

SNACK 2: (Pre-Workout Meal) 1 Cliff Bar for long workouts OR
1/2 Cup Cottage cheese or a light yogurt if looking to shed weight.

DINNER: 6-8 oz. lean meat, fish, poultry, or pork with large
portions of steamed or raw veggies, and a SMALL portion of
starch such as red potatoes, organic wild rice, or cous cous.

DESSERT: 1/2 Grapefruit OR 2-3 Organic Cookies

Is this fancy? NO! Is it hard to do? NO! Will it help get your
energy back on track and your body shedding some extra
baggage? YES!! Give it a shot for three days and you will see!

QUICK & SIMPLE NUTRITION TIP 2: Cut back on refined sugars,
white bread, soft drinks, cookies, chips, and foods with additives.

This is more about dealing with your bodies level of toxicity rather
than just nutrition. Refined sugars and other processed foods
ARE not what your body wants or needs to work well.

When you diet is packed with these compounds it will not function
properly. Even if you feel 'OK', you are seriously missing out
on a whole new world of 'FEELING GOOD'!

These foods are not 'energy driving' they are 'energy draining'
and will actually cause you fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and
poor performance...on and off the bike;)

Instead try these 'ENERGY DRIVING REPLACEMENTS':

Organic Fig Newtons (Made by Paul Newman--Awesome!)

Organic Black Bean Chips & Organic Salsa

Apples, Oranges, Pears, Plums, and Other Fruits

Almonds, Walnuts, Pecans and Other Non-refined Nuts

Flax or Organic Breads

These are just some basic ideas for snacks, the list goes on
and on and you can get most of these at a good health food
store such as Wild Oats and Trader Joes.

QUICK & SIMPLE NUTRITION TIP 3: Keep the water coming!

Again, this one is so simple, yet so many of us, myself included
at times MISS THIS ONE! We get so caught up in our day and
hectic work and life schedule that by the time we think about
it we're already dehydrated!

When you are dehydrated, it's like taking all the oil out of your
car engine. Eventually it will just STOP running!

Here are some simple suggestions to make sure you always
are running with a full tank of water:

1. Start EVERYDAY with 8-10 oz. of water FIRST THING!

2. Keep a large water bottle to sip off ALL day long!

3. Make sure you are hydrating well one hour before you ride
or workout and ALWAYS drink water during and after your
workouts!

4. WATCH OUT for coffee, teas, sodas, protein powders as
they will tend to further dehydrate you!!

5. If you sweat like me, watch out from drinking TOO much water
and diluting your electrolyte levels (BAD). You may want to
take an electrolyte supplement before workouts and
possibly an energy drink with electrolyte in it.

NONE of these TIPS are difficult to achieve! The bottom line is
that these simple tactics will work for EVERYONE if you follow
them CONSISTENTLY!

We all get on board with good nutrition tactics at first and then
life gets in the way and we get back off track. You have to
start seeing your nutrition and a path to your ULTIMATE STATE
OF MIND AND BODY. The training is important, but without the
right nutrition...it's all for NOT!

Ride Hard. Keep Your Nutrition SIMPLE! Ride Healthier!