Review: For those who train

By 16. March 2016Blog, Health, Nutrition

Welcome to a special review edition of our blog. To celebrate that Crossfit Freiburg opened their doors 3 years ago we would like to review some of our sport related blogs during that time.

First off, diet. What should you eat in your meals? How much protein? How much carbohydrate? In one blog from May 2014 we reported on a paper that suggested to build the most muscle you should divide your protein intake equally over the day, having approx. 30g per meal. Volunteers on this diet put on more muscle than people who had a diet with large amounts of protein only for dinner.

In a diet blog that followed one year later, another paper reported that people that split their protein intake equally over the 3 meals (with approx. 30g per meal) were able to lose more weight than people that cut down on the protein. It seems that by keeping protein intake at a reasonable level your resting energy expenditure is maintained whereas it is decreased when on other diets.

Still staying on the subject of protein intake, which sort should you consume? In a blog from April 2014 we reported on paper that found when a protein drink was made with protein from whey, casein and soy mixed together, the release of the protein was over a longer period of time than just from whey, the protein used in many protein shakes. The difference in release rates is due to the different digestion rates of the proteins. If you are looking for a protein drink but don’t like shakes, you could try is Brewtein, a beer made with 7g of protein per bottle.

What about junk food? Although most of us don’t eat it very often, I certainly am partial to the odd helping now and again. In a blog from 2014 we reported that people given some “junk food” after exercise showed no significant difference in insulin, glucose or lipid levels in their blood compared to people given an isoenergetic sport supplement. The only problem I see with this is that junk food is the last thing I want to eat after exercising.

Moving slightly on from junk food to fat, if you want to restrict your food intake to try and see that 6 pack that you’ve been building that is currently “protected”? A paper we reported on in September in 2014 found that if anything should be restricted it is carbohydrates. Restricting intake of fat did lead to weight loss, but some of the weight that was lost was lean muscle, just the thing you want to build. A low carbohydrate diet, on the other hand, led to more weight loss and the loss was not due to lean muscle mass.

If you want to improve your endurance why not try some beetroot juice? Apparently, after one week of a daily drink of beetroot juice,  aerobic endurance was improved by 24%.

After all that exercise if you are considering a nice cold pint go ahead. A study published in July of 2015 found that after doing a run, drinking up to 660ml of beer (just shy of a pint and a half) with as much water as the participants wanted did not lead to a significant difference in fluid balance or urine excretion values compared to a group given only water.

Cheers!