An endurance athlete is someone who participates in running, cycling, swimming (Vaughan swimming), and for multiple hours at a time. The top question that professional dieticians get – What should I be eating during training? Erica Goldstein, registered dietician talks about what foods are great for endurance athletes. Watch the video below for more.

Essential Carbohydrates For The Endurance Athlete

The very first thing dieticians advice endurance athletes are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are nutrients that one can get from fruits like bananas, raisins, and dates. Carbohydrates can also come from starch like potatoes, pasta, and rice. Any of these types of food are considered a carbohydrate.

The benefit of carbohydrate is being able to supply a constant fuel source to your working muscle. Typically, an athlete who’s training for 90 minutes needs 30 grams of carbohydrates after their first hour of training. An athlete who is training for about 2 hours will be needing about 30-60 grams of carbohydrates after their first hour of training. Any athlete who is training for two and a half to three hours or more will be needing 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour.

For anyone beginning to train for endurance types of sports, dieticians advise experimenting on different types of products to see what they can tolerate. So try one product at a time and see what you can tolerate. Once you have figured out what works for you, the night before a race or competition, don’t try something new.

The most important advice for someone training for an endurance event is to really understand what your body has a finite amount of carbohydrates stored. If you don’t learn to eat additional carbohydrates during training then there is a danger of losing all your energy during a race. There is a high chance that you will not be able to finish all because your body lacks the right amount of carbohydrates. So you want to give your body the energy that it needs if you want it to perform in endurance sports events.