Fueling Our Bodies

Nutrition plays a vital role in your daily life. The foods you choose, when you eat, and how much you consume all influence your body’s function, energy, sleep, and mood. Fueling your body goes beyond supporting exercise – it’s about nourishing yourself for everything you do. Let’s explore how whole foods can help you thrive each day.

Important Education Takeaways

Food as fuel. The food we eat is essential for nourishing and fueling our bodies.

The three macronutrients of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats provide calories, which act as the fuel source for our hard-working bodies. Micronutrients, alternatively, do not provide energy in the form of calories, but instead provide vitamins and minerals that are critical for a myriad of cellular functions throughout all the body systems. 

• Carbs: 4 calories per gram

  • Act as primary energy source for your brain and muscles

• Proteins: 4 calories per gram

  • Maintain muscle health and tissue quality

  • Support hormone and immune function

• Fats: 9 calories per gram

  • Store energy and support cellular formation

  • Promote satiety

Maintain a proper energy balance for your body’s needs. Though metabolism is not as simple as calories in vs calories out, it is still important to fuel your body appropriately by eating the right kinds of foods and in the right amounts.

Your individual nutritional needs may vary based on a number of factors including body size, age, gender, physical activity levels, and medical conditions. It is important to eat a variety of nourishing foods, at the right times, and in the appropriate amounts to best support our bodies, our exercise, and our overall health.

• Quality & Balance: Regardless of how much you’re exercising, it is still important to eat a quality diet. Choose a variety of nutrient-dense foods to best support your body’s needs including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Find the right balance between carbs, proteins, and fats at meals and snacks to keep your body fueled and satisfied.

• Meal Timing: Provide your body with regular energy input by following a consistent eating routine. Avoid skipping meals and add snacks when needed.

• Portion Control & Mindfulness: Eat appropriate amounts of food to support your body’s energy demands. Avoid under or over-eating by following your body’s hunger and fullness cues-- feed your body when it needs fuel and stop eating when you feel satisfied. Consider eating larger portions or adding snacks on strenuous workout days or try eating smaller portions on your more sedentary days.

Different exercise routines require different fueling strategies.Tailor your eating routine to best support your fitness and performance goals.

• Cardio exercise: Aerobic activities that support cardiovascular and pulmonary function such as running, cycling, swimming, dancing, and HIIT.

  • Pre-workout: Focus on easily digestible carbs for quick energy

  • Post-workout: Replenish glycogen stores with carbs, support muscle repair and growth with protein

• Strength/resistance training: Anaerobic activities that support building muscle mass, strength, and power such as weightlifting, resistance bands, and body weight training.

  • Pre-workout: Combination of carbs + small amount of protein

  • Post-workout: Focus on high quality protein to support muscle repair and growth

• Flexibility & Balance: Aerobic activities that support range of motion, mobility, muscle elasticity, and injury prevention such as yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, and stretching exercises.

  • Pre- and post-workout: Focus on hydration, consume a snack or light meal with balanced nutrients

Pre-workout snacks: consume at least 30-60 minutes before your exercise session to allow for adequate digestion and to provide your body with needed fuel for an effective workout.

Post-workout snacks: consume within 30-60 minutes following a strenuous exercise session to replenish glycogen stores and support muscle repair. Choose quality carbohydrate foods (fruits, cereals, bread, crackers, tortillas, rice, pasta) and protein foods (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, tofu, beans, lentils, chia seeds, pea or whey protein powders/bars) to make the perfect refueling snacks such as:

• Chocolate milk

• Fruit smoothie with added protein powder

• Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

• Greek yogurt with berries

• Cottage cheese with peaches

• Banana and a nut bar

Hydration matters. It is important to maintain proper hydration before, during, and after exercise for best performance.

Water is essential to keep our bodies running smoothly. Adequate hydration keeps us energized through our daily activities and supports endurance, strength, and recovery during exercise.

• Baseline hydration: Keep yourself hydrated by sipping on water throughout your day, aiming for at least 6-8 cups per day depending on your body size, activity level, and climate.

• Pre-exercise hydration: Drink 16-20 ounces of water 2-3 hours before exercise and 8 ounces 20-30 minutes before starting your workout.

• During exercise: Sip water throughout your workout. For workouts lasting more than an hour, sip water or an electrolyte drink every 15-20 minutes.

• Post-exercise hydration: Rehydrate by drinking at least 16-24 ounces of water or an electrolyte drink for every pound lost during your workout.

Water is typically the best choice for hydration unless you are participating in prolonged aerobic activity sessions lasting longer than 60 minutes in duration or if you are experiencing excessive sweat losses, in which case electrolyte replacement drinks may be helpful in maintaining adequate hydration. Limit intake of caffeine and alcohol as these can increase urination and lead to excessive fluid losses. Monitor the color of your urine — aiming for pale yellow urine, not concentrated dark yellow urine. Up your fluid intake when spending time in hot temperatures and experiencing increased sweat losses. 

Don’t sleep on rest. Our bodies need adequate rest to recover, repair, and rejuvenate.

We all know that regular exercise can help you sleep better, but did you know the opposite is also true? Regular sleep can also help your body perform better, both in exercise and in day-to-day functioning. Follow a consistent sleep routine that includes going to bed and waking around the same time each day. Create a dark, cool, and quite sleeping environment to achieve 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night.

A great resource for healthy sleep habits is 10-3-2-1-0 rule:

• Avoid caffeine intake for 10 hours before bedtime

• Avoid drinking alcohol or eating a heavy meal 3 hours before bedtime

• Allow your mind to wind down by finishing all work-related tasks 2 hours before bedtime

• Stop all screen time, including TV and phones, for 1 hour before bedtime

• Wake up when your alarm goes off with 0 uses of the snooze button

In the short term, insufficient sleep can lead to lethargy, slowed reaction time, impaired cognitive function, irritability, anxiety, and depression where chronic sleep deprivation can lead to increased risk for high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, and obesity as well as decreased immune function. 

In addition to sleep, adequate rest is also crucial for your body. This might mean taking a rest day or two each week, allowing yourself to take it easy when you’re feeling run down, or mixing up the type of exercises you’re doing to prevent overuse injuries and/or burnout. Try to incorporate active recovery activities such as walking, swimming, stretching, or yoga to give your body some low-intensity movement between more strenuous workout sessions. And remember that rest allows your body to heal, recover, and restore itself, resulting in better physical performance as well as improved health and wellbeing.

Recipes

• Recipe of the month: Cranberry Pecan Energy Balls

  • As always, this recipe is the showcase of our live taught, virtual cooking class. Our chef and registered dietitian bring the recipe to life as they walk you through food prep, swaps to meet dietary or taste preferences, plus tips and tools to support you being your own healthy chef at home.

• Bonus recipe: Coco-Melon Splash

  • From Jamie’s kitchen to yours, our monthly bonus recipes are published on our website and social media the 4th Wednesday of each month. We invite you to browse our recipe collection and come back often to find more flavorful and heart-healthy recipes.

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We invite you to join us for the live taught, virtual nutrition classes each month to gather more information on our nutrition topics. This is also an opportunity to ask topic-related questions of our experts as well as connect socially with attendees for idea sharing. As a registered participant for our In the Kitchen program, you receive a few reminders ahead of each scheduled monthly classes, but here’s an easy to remember schedule: Nutrition Education (30-minutes, 2nd Wednesday, 12pm), Cooking Class (up to 60-minutes, 3rd Monday, 12pm).

Contributing authors: Jamie Libera, RD, LD, CCTD, registered dietitian, Providence.