Timing Your Meals For Maximum Energy During Sports

Featuring Stefanie Senior, BSc, Registered Dietitian

Duration: 1 minute, 35 seconds Video Title: Timing Your Meals For Maximum Energy During Sports So for athletes who want to fuel their event or their tournament or their game properly, they want to focus on carbohydrate for the pre-event meal or snack.

And you know the amount of carbohydrate is very important, but also the type of carbohydrate. So you don’t want to fuel up on too much processed sugar or refined grains.

You want to focus on carbohydrates that will allow for a slow and steady rise in blood sugar and a smooth return to normal. And that’s mostly important for meals, which are three to four hours before an event, because the last thing you want is a blood sugar spike and drop.

And then by the time your event rolls around you don’t have that energy available to power through the event. So something like oatmeal would be a great breakfast choice because it allows for a slow and steady rise in blood sugars, so a more sustained energy.

The other thing you want to look at is hydration, so you want to make sure that you start sipping water as soon as you wake up in the morning and sip on water all the way until your event.

And that will help to keep your energy levels up, prevent dehydration. One of the very first signs of dehydration is fatigue and burnout, and so that’s something you definitely want to prevent during a game or event.

It is important to realize that sports nutrition plans are individualized, so it would be great if an athlete could contact a local dietitian to create a customized nutrition plan for them.

Video filmed in conjunction with Featuring Stefanie Senior, BSc, Registered and HealthChoicesFirst

Presenter: Stefanie Senior, Registered Dietitian, Toronto, ON

Local Practitioners: Registered Dietitian