Metabolism & Sports Nutrition for Weight Loss

While everyone’s body processes food and nutrients similarly, active individuals and athletes have unique nutritional needs for adequately replenishing their bodies after high intensity activity. In order to maintain their athletic competitiveness, high endurance and energy levels, each person requires a customized nutrition program and fueling strategy for promoting healthy growth during training and competition.

Proper Nutrition includes maintaining adequate hydration, electrolyte levels, caloric intake and micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) replenishment. All of this can be accomplished from natural diets aside from supplements, but can be augmented through the use of protein powders, nutrition bars, sports drinks and multi-vitamins.

Aside from proper nutrition, the right ‘fueling strategy’ is necessary for our bodies to utilize our diet most effectively for nutrient replenishment and muscle growth; this means focusing on implementing specific eating strategies: eating the right food types at the right time. With Celebrity Personal Trainer, Lucas James and Jason Apfel, they will make customizing nutrition simple for meeting your toughest weight-loss and exercise goals. They will help boost your metabolism within 90 days.

‘Replenishment’ means supplying what our bodies with nutrients they can actually absorb and utilize, before, during and after exercise. By assessing nutrient absorption and utilization as parameters for dietary intake, rather than just expenditure, we can best understand realistic nutrient amounts and dietary measures necessary for refueling our bodies.

For example, during exercise, our bodies use carbohydrates as the primary source of energy. In order to burn fat, individuals must work out in the correct heart rate zone where higher oxygen levels are available. These macro-nutrients (carbs & fats) don’t go directly to our muscles to provide the energy we need, but are first involved in a complex series of metabolic cycles that aid in transporting, distributing, utilizing and storing nutrients.

When adequate ‘fueling’ is concerned, more is not always better. This notion often fails to account for the fact that our bodies both naturally generate and store specific nutrients, including substances such as cholesterol. This often means we consume much more than we actually need, even after high endurance exercise. More so, our body’s complex metabolic and physiological pathways often trump the simple idea of simply balancing ‘calories in and calories out’. Aside from physical activity, we also burn calories through producing body heat and regulating of our internal body temperature. Our bodies also require calories to maintain basic life-sustaining functions such as breathing and normal physiological functioning.

The idea that more is better can also inhibit our bodies use of water and electrolytes. Athletes can consume more than four times the amount of minerals their bodies can actually process during exercise. This typically translates to wasting money by over-using supplements and vitamins. More importantly, over-consumption can result in a variety of G.I. and muscular problems that can cause discomfort, impair performance and impede tissue growth and repair.

The bottom line is everyone should aim at replenishing our bodies with what it can utilize instead of solely trying to replace what our body expends. It is important to take into account the demands for fluid, calorie and electrolyte intakes when starting any exercise and nutrition program.